Page 178 - International Perspectives on Effective Teaching and Learning in Digital Education

Mojca Žefran and Silva Bratož

How challenging was the activity?
80%
70%
60%
50%
40%
30%
50%
20%
29%
10% 18%
0% 3%
0%
1 It was not 2 It was not 3 Something 4 It was quite 5 lt was very
a challenge too much medium. a challenge. challenging.
for me at all. of a challenge.
Graph 4 Students’ Perceptions of the Difficulty of the IBL Activities

Students reported improvements in using online resources like Google
Scholar, learning new apps, and using technology for presentations and col-
laborative work. A minority of students felt they had not developed signifi-
cant digital skills, as they were already proficient in this area; however, they
noted improvements in critical thinking and collaboration skills. Finally, 68%
of students agreed that the IBL experience made the use of digital tools and
applications easier, while 1% were undecided and the remaining students
felt their pre-existing digital competence was already advanced.
The third research question was aimed at identifying the challenges of the
participants in implementing the IBL approach. As we can see from Graph 4,
the IBL scenario posed varying levels of difficulty for the students: 9% found
it not too challenging, 5% perceived it as moderately challenging, 18%
found it quite challenging, and 3% considered it very challenging.
The most significant challenge reported was the application of critical
thinking skills to locate and evaluate relevant academic literature. Both the
questionnaire and focus group discussions highlighted that students strug-
gled with identifying appropriate sources, understanding the literature, and
extracting key information. Other challenges included coordinating group
work and structuring their workshops effectively.

Discussion
The results from this study suggest that the IBL scenario effectively engag-
es students in active, self-directed learning, particularly in the phases of en-
gagement, exploration, elaboration, and evaluation. Students demonstrated

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