Project-Based Teaching Reform and Process-Oriented Assessment for an Electronic Product Fabrication Practicum: A Case Study in a Higher Vocational College

Abstract

In higher-vocational programmes in electronics and information technology, a two-week intensive practicum commonly suffers from three weaknesses: projects that are poorly aligned with real workplace tasks, coarse process control, and assessment drawn from a narrow base of evidence. This paper reports a systematic reform of the Electronic Product Fabrication Practicum built around three design choices. First, a three-stage project sequence comprising Basic Assembly, Unit Debugging, and Comprehensive Troubleshooting is designed to align with students’ competency development within the short practicum cycle. Second, a TBL-PDCA (Team-Based Learning combined with Plan-Do-Check-Act) model is embedded throughout the workflow, coupling group collaboration with continuous process-quality control. Third, a process-oriented assessment system is anchored on three types of evidence: physical artifacts, structured forms, and measurement data. The reform was piloted with the 41 students of Electronics Class 2 (Cohort 2023) at Jiangsu College of Engineering and Technology; the class mean was 80.94, the pass rate was 95.12%, 75.61% of students scored 80 or above, and the documented pre-power-on self-check rate was 100% among accepted submissions with available forms. These results are reported as descriptive evidence from one cohort, supported by process records on workmanship, measurement discipline, and logical fault diagnosis, rather than as causal evidence of improvement. The scheme offers a reusable reference for short-cycle practicum courses of similar form.