Merging water research, analytical chemistry, and agile management to shape prospective professionals through the project-centred collaborative approach focusing on water bodies rather than water samples

Gros, Nataša (author)

Professionals of different disciplines, including chemists and chemical engineers, engage in water research, even though they might not have been extensively trained in it during their studies. We describe a project-centred master level subject “Water as a Hydrogeological, Ecological, and Analytical System”, which, by focussing on waterbodies instead of a particular aspect of water quality, merges total analytical process with water research and, by a considerate choice of chemical parameters, enables students to apply water-research-specific data-treatment techniques, including the Piper and Stiff diagram, to discuss water genesis, processes in water, and influences on waterbodies. Agile management, initiated in computer engineering in 2001, is believed to contribute to better products in a shorter time. We demonstrate how its incorporation into the organisational scheme helped students self-organise, handle their projects, and collaborate within and between groups. Student’s expressions confirm their overall satisfaction, motivation, and that the omission of the final classical exam had no adverse effects on the learning outcomes. Their consent with different benefits of the project-centred collaborative approach and their self-efficacy beliefs, respectively, expressed as mean values in a five-grade Likert scale ranged from 4.26 to 5.00 and from 4.32 to 5.00. Regarding the students’ time investment, the project-centred approach as the mean grade 3 confirmed is not recognised as an easier way. We provide partially self-calculating, self-notifying Excel spreadsheet tables to ease the implementation of water research data-treatment techniques, which help students collaborate and discuss their subject extensively.

• Language: English
• Keywords: water research, waterbody, analytical chemistry, data treatment, Piper diagram, agile management, master-level education, project-based learning, collaborative learning, students self-efficacy beliefs
• Work type: Article
• Typology: 1.01 - Original Scientific Article
• Organization: FKKT - Faculty of Chemistry and Chemical Technology
• Publication status: Published
• Publication version: Version of Record
• Year: 2021
• Number of pages: 23 str.
• Numbering: Vol. 13, iss. 19, art. 10803
• PID: 20.500.12556/RUL-136296
• UDC: 543.3
• ISSN on article: 2071-1050
• DOI: 10.3390/su131910803
• COBISS.SI-ID: 78598403
• Publication date in RUL: 22.04.2022

Record is a part of a journal

• Title: Sustainability
• Shortened title: Sustainability
• Publisher: MDPI
• ISSN: 2071-1050
• COBISS.SI-ID: 5324897

Licences

• License: CC BY 4.0, Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International
• Link: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
• Description: This is the standard Creative Commons license that gives others maximum freedom to do what they want with the work as long as they credit the author.
• Licensing start date: 01.10.2021

Secondary language

• Language: Slovenian
• Keywords: raziskave vod, vodno telo, analizna kemija, vrednotenje rezultatov, Piperjev diagram, agilno vodenje, magistrski študij, projektno učenje, sodelovalno učenje, mnenja študentov o lastni učinkovitosti

Projects

• Funder: ARRS - Slovenian Research Agency
• Project number: P1-0153
• Name: Raziskave in razvoj analiznih metod in postopkov