ISSN2320-2882
Impact Factor9.17
UGC ParametersAligned
Low Cost₹1501 / $59
CrossRefDOI
ESTD2013
Peer ReviewTransparent
AccessOpen
Submission: Always Open
Paper Title
How Project-Based Learning Is Developing 21st-Century Skills among Secondary School Students in India: A Secondary Data Review
Authors
Dr.MD. Zakir Hussain
Keywords
project-based learning, 21st-century skills, secondary education, India, experiential learning, competency-based education, review
Abstract
Project-Based Learning (PBL) has gained renewed relevance in India as schools shift toward competency-based education and experiential pedagogies encouraged by national and board-level policy directions. Yet, despite widespread advocacy, Indian evidence on how and which 21st-century skills are developed through PBL at the secondary level remains scattered across subject areas, school systems, and implementation contexts. This secondary-data review synthesizes policy documents, curriculum guidance, and peer-reviewed empirical and meta-analytic research to examine the link between PBL and 21st-century skills among secondary students in India. Using a structured review approach (identification, screening, eligibility, synthesis), the study maps PBL design features to skill outcomes--critical thinking, collaboration, communication, creativity, self-management, and digital literacy. Findings indicate that PBL is most strongly associated with gains in higher-order thinking, collaborative problem solving, and learner agency when projects are anchored in driving questions, authentic contexts, feedback cycles, and student voice. However, uneven infrastructure, assessment misalignment, teacher preparedness, and superficial "project display" practices often dilute impact. The review proposes a context-sensitive framework--the PBL-to-Skills Pathway Model--for secondary schools in India, along with implementation and evaluation recommendations aligned to policy expectations and board standards.
Full Paper, Downloads & Preview
How To Cite
Choose the style your journal or department asks for, then copy it. Every version below is generated from this paper's own record.
IJCRT — journal style
"How Project-Based Learning Is Developing 21st-Century Skills among Secondary School Students in India: A Secondary Data Review", IJCRT - International Journal of Creative Research Thoughts (www.ijcrt.org), ISSN:2320-2882, Vol.14, Issue 2, page no.g713-g721, February 2026, Available :https://ijcrt.org/papers/IJCRT2602769.pdf
APA — 7th edition
Hussain, D. M. Z. (2026). How Project-Based Learning Is Developing 21st-Century Skills among Secondary School Students in India: A Secondary Data Review. International Journal of Creative Research Thoughts, 14(2), g713-g721. https://ijcrt.org/viewpaperforall.php?paper=IJCRT2602769
MLA — 9th edition
Hussain, Dr.MD. Zakir. "How Project-Based Learning Is Developing 21st-Century Skills among Secondary School Students in India: A Secondary Data Review." International Journal of Creative Research Thoughts, vol. 14, no. 2, 2026, pp. g713-g721, https://ijcrt.org/viewpaperforall.php?paper=IJCRT2602769.
Chicago — 17th, bibliography
Hussain, Dr.MD. Zakir. "How Project-Based Learning Is Developing 21st-Century Skills among Secondary School Students in India: A Secondary Data Review." International Journal of Creative Research Thoughts 14, no. 2 (2026): g713-g721. https://ijcrt.org/viewpaperforall.php?paper=IJCRT2602769.
Harvard — author–date
Hussain, D.M.Z. (2026) 'How Project-Based Learning Is Developing 21st-Century Skills among Secondary School Students in India: A Secondary Data Review', International Journal of Creative Research Thoughts, 14(2), pp. g713-g721. Available at: https://ijcrt.org/viewpaperforall.php?paper=IJCRT2602769
IEEE — numbered reference
D. M. Z. Hussain, "How Project-Based Learning Is Developing 21st-Century Skills among Secondary School Students in India: A Secondary Data Review," IJCRT, vol. 14, no. 2, pp. g713-g721, Feb. 2026.
Vancouver — biomedical
Hussain DMZ. How Project-Based Learning Is Developing 21st-Century Skills among Secondary School Students in India: A Secondary Data Review. IJCRT. 2026 Feb;14(2):g713-g721.
AMA — 11th edition
Hussain DMZ. How Project-Based Learning Is Developing 21st-Century Skills among Secondary School Students in India: A Secondary Data Review. IJCRT. 2026;14(2):g713-g721. Accessed at https://ijcrt.org/viewpaperforall.php?paper=IJCRT2602769
BibTeX — Zotero, Mendeley, LaTeX
@article{IJCRT2602769,
author = {Dr.MD. Zakir Hussain},
title = {How Project-Based Learning Is Developing 21st-Century Skills among Secondary School Students in India: A Secondary Data Review},
journal = {International Journal of Creative Research Thoughts},
volume = {14},
number = {2},
pages = {g713-g721},
year = {2026},
month = {February},
issn = {2320-2882},
url = {https://ijcrt.org/viewpaperforall.php?paper=IJCRT2602769}
}
RIS — EndNote, RefWorks
TY - JOUR
AU - Hussain, Dr.MD. Zakir
TI - How Project-Based Learning Is Developing 21st-Century Skills among Secondary School Students in India: A Secondary Data Review
T2 - International Journal of Creative Research Thoughts
JA - IJCRT
VL - 14
IS - 2
PY - 2026
SN - 2320-2882
UR - https://ijcrt.org/viewpaperforall.php?paper=IJCRT2602769
SP - g713-g721
ER -
Issue
Volume 14 Issue 2,
February-2026
Pages : g713-g721
Article Information
- Published In
- International Journal of Creative Research Thoughts — Volume 14, Issue 2, February 2026
- Pages
- g713-g721
- Published
- February 2026
- Registration ID
- IJCRT_302266
- Published Paper ID
- IJCRT2602769
- Research Area
- Others area
- Author Type
- Indian Author
- Location
- Select City, Telangana, India
- Peer Review
- Request Peer Review Report
- Licence
- CC BY 4.0 · Open Access
- ISSN & Impact Factor
- 2320-2882 · IF 9.17
- Downloads
- 159
- Permanent Link
- https://ijcrt.org/viewpaperforall.php?paper=IJCRT2602769
- Published Paper PDF
- https://ijcrt.org/papers/IJCRT2602769.pdf
Summarise this Paper with AI
Opens your assistant with a prepared prompt. AI summaries can be incomplete or wrong — read the full paper before citing it.
Author Services
Certificates, printed copies and official reports for this paper
Published authors can request a hard copy of their certificate or of the printed journal, and obtain the transparent peer review and plagiarism reports for this article — each issued against this paper’s registration record.
Registration ID IJCRT_302266Printed copies
Hard Copy of CertificatePrinted certificate for each author, posted to you.
Hard Copy of JournalA bound printed copy of the issue this paper appears in.
Reports & recognition
Transparent Peer Review Report
The reviewer comments and decisions behind this article.
Turnitin Plagiarism Report
The similarity check run on this manuscript.
Best Paper Nomination
Put this article forward for the issue’s best paper award.
Requests are verified against the registration ID of this article.
About Publisher
International Journal of Creative Research Thoughts
Published by IJCRT Publication
2320-2882
ISSN
9.17
Impact Factor
2013
ESTD Year
Open
Access
Impact Factor 9.17, calculated from Google Scholar citation data — see how it is worked out.
An international scholarly open access journal: peer-reviewed, refereed, multidisciplinary, monthly and multilingual, with Crossref DOI registration, rich metadata and a citation generator. Verified indexing & discovery records.
IJCRT is a Transparent, Peer-Reviewed, Open Access Journal (Refereed Journal). Following the discontinuation of UGC and UGC-CARE journal listing, IJCRT is aligned with UGC’s Suggested Parameters for Choosing Peer-Reviewed Journals. UGC Public Notice
Licence
© 2026 — Authors hold the copyright of this article.
This work is licensed under a
Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License
and The Open Definition.
This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC BY 4.0),
which permits unrestricted use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
Disclaimer:
The content, data and findings in this article are based on the authors’ research and have been
peer-reviewed for academic purposes only. Readers are advised to verify all information before practical
or commercial use. The journal and its editorial board are not liable for any errors, losses or
consequences arising from its use.
Declarations
Funding
No external funding was received for this study.
Conflict of Interest
The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.
Acknowledgements
The authors would like to thank the reviewers and the editorial board of International Journal of Creative Research Thoughts for their careful reading and constructive comments, and all colleagues who supported the preparation of this manuscript.
About the Journal
9.17Impact Factor
UGC AlignedSuggested Parameters
TransparentPeer Review
Open AccessNo Paywall
CrossrefDOI Available
Monthly12 Issues / Year
Since 2013Established
2320-2882ISSN
How Publication Works
1Submit Your PaperOnline or by email. A registration ID is issued straight away.
2Transparent Peer ReviewDouble-blind review by subject experts, reported openly.
3AcceptanceThe result reaches you by email and SMS against your registration ID.
4Published Open AccessFree to read worldwide, with certificate and letter ready to download.
Article Impact
31Views
18Downloads
49Total reads
Feb 2026Published
Published · 220 days ago
Today · last read today
1.7 views and 1.0 downloads per day over 18 days counted.
Counts exclude identified crawler traffic and repeat hits from the same reader within 30 minutes. Downloads reached directly through a search engine or an existing citation link are not included, so the figure is a conservative count of activity through this site. Full statistics
Discovery & Indexing
Find this paper on search engines and scholarly indexes, and check the journal’s verified records.
Find this paperSearch
Google ScholarExact-title search, with citing articles once indexed.Search
CrossrefMetadata search across all Crossref records.Search
Semantic ScholarAI-powered literature search.Search- BASEBASEBielefeld Academic Search Engine — open-access harvester.Search
ResearchGateResearch network publication search.Search
Journal recordsVerified
“Search” opens a live search for this paper; “Verified” opens a journal record checked on the Indexing & Discovery page. Third-party services index at their own discretion, often several weeks after publication.
