What Drives Undergraduate Engineering Students to Engage in Project Based Learning: A Case of Curriculum Reform in a Chinese University.

Work in Progress: This Innovative Practice Work in Progress paper reports the continuous reform of a project-based engineering course in a Chinese university, particularly its impact on student engagement. Projects on Electronic Technology is a project-based course offered during the summer semester for sophomores. Students develop a small electronic system in three consecutive weeks. In recent years, we have tried to reform the teaching and learning of this course in many ways, including changing the main deliverable from fixed-topic projects to open-ended, student-driven projects, and a shift from individual to team-based work. The course instructors had witnessed an increase in student engagement. In order to investigate the main factors that improve students' engagement in project-based learning, student feedback was collected through a post-course questionnaire in the summer of 2022. In the questionnaire, we listed 15 potential factors that might impact student engagement in the course. 77 out of 88 students in the summer 2022 course completed the questionnaire. This paper presents and analyzes the top factors that impacted student engagement in the course according to student feedback.