Project-Based Learning in Malaysian Pre-University Mechanical Engineering: A Descriptive Survey of Lecturer Facilitation and Student Participation

Project-based learning (PjBL) is widely promoted in engineering education because it connects disciplinary knowledge with authentic design activity, collaboration, technical problem solving, documentation, and reflective learning. However, implementation quality depends not only on assigning students a project, but also on how lecturers facilitate learning and how students participate in the project process. This article reports a single-site descriptive survey of PjBL implementation in the second-semester mechanical engineering design project at Kolej Matrikulasi Kejuruteraan Kedah, Malaysia. The study involved 52 mechanical engineering students from the 2022/2023 academic session who completed a 19-item Malay-language questionnaire adapted from a prior PjBL implementation framework. Descriptive analysis showed high perceived lecturer facilitation (M = 4.58) and high student participation (M = 4.68), with an overall dimension-based implementation mean of 4.63. Student participation was especially strong in information searching, report writing, workshop activity, lecturer consultation, expert engagement, and project presentation. Lecturer facilitation was also rated highly for discussion, guidance, technical support, monitoring, and assessment. The main implementation weakness was lecturer encouragement to complete projects (M = 3.44, SD = 1.62), suggesting that motivational scaffolding was less consistent than technical and procedural support. The article contributes a context-specific implementation profile of PjBL in Malaysian pre-university mechanical engineering and argues that technically strong project supervision should be complemented by systematic motivational, autonomy-supportive, and formative feedback practices. The findings should be interpreted as descriptive implementation evidence rather than causal evidence of PjBL effectiveness.