THE EDUCATIONAL INFLUENCES OF PROJECT DESIGN EDUCATION ON STUDENTS’ LEARNING ABILITIES (The First Report)

Project Design (PD) education system, a reformed educational system from the 1995- developed Engineering Design system of Kanazawa Institute of Technology (KIT), has been playing a crucial role in the curriculum of KIT. The PD education system (PD Introduction, PD I, PD II, PD Hands-on, and PD III) that applies Project-based Learning (PBL), aims to nurture graduates to become successfully independent thinking engineers or business people. Within the collaboration framework established in 2014 by KIT and Ho Chi Minh City University of Technology (HUTECH) in Vietnam, the KIT's PD I and PD II courses have been adopted by HUTECH for its newly founded institution, namely Vietnam - Japan Institute of Technology (VJIT) in order to equip VJITʼs graduates with global industry-ready abilities and skillsets that are aligned with CDIO Syllabus. VJIT has been implementing these KITʼs PD courses for three years. This paper reports the results of a preliminary research survey conducted at KIT and VJIT on the educational influences of PD I and PD II courses on students’ learning abilities and skills. The results of the survey show positive influences of these PD courses on students’ learning abilities and skills in both institutions. The research also yields some recommendations for improving the practices of PD courses in both KIT and VJIT in the future.