An Analysis of Learners’ Perceptions of Project-Phase Difficulties and the Need for Procedural Worksheet Support in a Living Lab-PBL Course

The purpose of this study was to examine what difficulties students experienced while carrying out a Living Lab-PBL project and what kinds of worksheet support they needed. The study was conducted in a 15-week regular course at A university in the second semester of 2025. The course was connected with eight community partner institutions. In the course, students visited the institutions, discussed field needs, defined project tasks, explored resources, generated and selected ideas, developed outputs, and reflected on the process. In this course, procedural worksheets were used to help students record their project process. The worksheets were reorganized from the practical TRIZ process, but the purpose of the study was not to verify the effect of TRIZ itself. Rather, this study focused on whether students needed procedural support in connecting one project phase to the next. After the course, 28 students answered a survey. The survey asked about phase-level difficulties, phase connection, helpful instructional support, and the need for worksheet support. Descriptive statistics, reliability analysis, frequency analysis, and a brief review of short written responses were used. The results showed that students had more difficulty in idea generation and selection, resource exploration, and output development than in problem finding. Among the phase connections, the transition from problem definition to resource exploration showed the lowest score. Students selected team discussion, instructor feedback, practical TRIZ worksheet lecture, and field feedback as helpful support. The need for worksheet support was relatively high for evaluation and reflection questions, sequential idea-generation tools, and phase checklists. These results suggest that procedural worksheets in Living Lab-PBL courses need to support phase connection, feedback use, and process documentation.