Project-based learning outcomes: Chemical knowledge and thinking skills of biotechnology and food engineering undergraduate students

We investigated the impact of project-based learning (PBL) on undergraduate food engineering students’ learning outcomes, focusing on food science, biotechnology, chemical knowledge, and thinking skills. The PBL course was offered in the department of biotechnology and food engineering at a research-intensive STEM university and emphasized context-based learning through the planning, design, and production of an innovative food product. Data were collected using a mixed-methods approach. The study included 68 students who completed questionnaires and presented scientific posters and final projects. We assessed students’ learning outcomes in four domains: (a) their ability to explain key concepts and processes (actual knowledge), (b) their self-confidence regarding these constructs, (c) their ability to identify the main subject of a paragraph in a scientific paper, and (d) their capacity to pose complex questions about the papers they had read. We further examined the transfer of theoretical and practical knowledge in designing and presenting a novel food product, as well as students’ monitoring of their knowledge along the cognitive–metacognitive spectrum. The findings revealed significant correlations between students’ knowledge and most of their skills, as well as between their knowledge and final project grades. This study contributes to the growing body of literature on undergraduate students’ cognitive and metacognitive development and offers a method to detect monitoring skills by comparing students’ actual disciplinary knowledge with their self-confidence in that knowledge.