Advanced preconditioning of educational projects to enhance student experience

This study aims to establish comprehensive guidelines for the initial management of student educational projects, focusing on minimising various risks: short-term and long-term, internal and external, educational and functional. It introduces an advanced approach to preconditioning student educational projects. In this context, preconditioning refers to a set of actions undertaken by a process actor to reduce the risk of failing to achieve the project’s intended outcomes. The framework of this novel approach follows a fundamental principle: any preconditioning action should contribute to one or more of the following objectives–enhancing the educational or industrial component, increasing student motivation, or reinforcing (or assigning) the actor’s subjectivity. As demonstrated, project-based education benefits from integrating project management principles, emphasising the necessity of thorough preparatory work. The conducted research provides survey-based evidence consistent with the hypotheses and employs quantitative analysis as the testing method. A cross-sectional survey was conducted in 2024 at Ural Federal University among 34,242 students and 5,005 teachers. More than 700 responses were obtained from students and 500 from teachers. The analysis of the results was primarily descriptive. The main limitation is that the study was conducted at a single university. The primary conclusion of the study is that PBL should utilise a specific project management approach to reduce risks and improve the student experience.