Employing project-based learning to foster essential professional skills in students of graphic design

Abstract

Around the world, employers seek graduates with collaboration, teamwork, interpersonal, communication, and project management skills worldwide. Project-based learning (PBL) helps foster these essential professional skills by providing learning opportunities in an environment of mutual investigation. Collaboration is integral to PBL, but often advantages of collaboration are not the focal point of discussion. This study focuses on creating a collaborative learning environment by introducing a real-world project under PBL instructional strategy to check its efficacy in developing some essential professional skills in graphic design education. The project was introduced in 2019 in the Publication Design course undertaken by 35 students enrolled in an undergraduate graphic design programme in India. The study employed mixed-method research in the form of a survey questionnaire followed by semi-structured interviews. The study results show that PBL helps foster the skills mentioned earlier to prepare students for the 21st-century workplace. Joint efforts by students in projects in graphic design education develop multiple skills much needed in the current workplace scenario.

Keywords

• Project-Based Learning (PBL)
• Essential Professional Skills
• Collaboration
• Graphic Design Education
• Real-World Project