By Thomas Møller Christensen, AAU Communication and Public Affairs. 
Photos: Ida Marie Jensen

When five physics students at Aalborg University (AAU) submitted their bachelor’s project in June 2023, they were well aware that they had delivered a solid piece of work. But the fact that it would be published in Nature – one of the world's leading scientific journals, put them on the front page of videnskab.dk and result in a lecture for Folkeuniversitet went way beyond their imaginations.

The last few months have thus been "completely surreal" for Claudia Larsen, Hans Christian Gjedsig Larsen, Casper Christian Pedersen, Peter Nørgaard Thomsen and Jonatan Tøffner-Clausen. Their bachelor project challenges existing theories about neutron stars, and after defending the project earning a solid grade of 12, they wrote the scientific article that Nature published in January this year.

The students themselves point to a combination of in-depth disciplinary knowledge and problem-oriented project work in groups, which AAU is known for, as essential factors for their success. Something their supervisor on the project supports them in:

"I was used to supervising students individually and was, admittedly, perhaps a little sceptical about the AAU model of group work before I came here. Fortunately, all my worries were put to shame. Now I understand better why AAU is repeatedly named Europe's best Engineering university," said Thomas Tauris, Professor of Astrophysics at AAU and co-author of the Nature article, connection with the publication earlier this year.

Read on below where the five students talk about their experience of the great interest in their project, and why problem-oriented project work in groups works so well for them.

What has it been like to experience such great interest in your project?

Casper: "It has been very overwhelming. I never imagined that I would be interviewed about my bachelor’s project on P4. On the one hand, it’s completely surreal, but on the other hand, it’s also incredibly cool to have had these experiences."

Hans: "It has also been a strange experience to go from being in a small pocket of specialists who understand our project to suddenly being bombarded with questions from all sorts of angles. It has taken some getting used to, but it’s also exciting to try to communicate our knowledge to a wider audience."

What do you think the result would have been if you had worked on the task separately?

Jonatan: "The result would not have been the same if we had been working on the task separately. I think that our different strengths mean that we go more in depth with the material, and it just means that the final result will be much better."

Peter: "Yes, exactly. And then being able to give each other feedback is really beneficial. If I'm in doubt about something, I can always ask for help from the others in the group instead of spending a long time trying to solve it myself. It clearly eliminated a lot of uncertainties."

Hans: "But I also think we learned to use each other effectively. At first, asking for help might feel like a failure, but we quickly learned that asking the others in the group is more effective than trying to solve it yourself."

So is mutual feedback the most important advantage of group work?

Claudia: "Feedback is important for the result, but it also works well for us because we learned to handle feedback in a good way. We know that it’s not aimed at the person, but at the project as a whole. It's a way of working that you need to learn, but it's an invaluable skill to have. And it’s also very satisfying to see the finished product and know that we created it together. We couldn't have done it alone."

Are there any experiences that you will take with you in your education and career?

Peter: "I think there’s a lot we can use. For example, we’ve gotten good at structuring our time and prioritizing tasks. In the beginning, our approach was very disorganized, but now we know that we have to follow a plan to get a good result."

Hans: "Yes, exactly. The transition from high school where you are constantly told what to do to a more independent learning environment at university can be challenging. In a group work, you must jointly define and distribute tasks, and this requires communication and coordination. These are important competencies, both now and in the future."

Jonatan: "I just fundamentally believe that we learned to work together and to work as a group. It involves shared responsibility, communication and conflict management. We may have already known this, but PBL and group work have given us a deeper understanding and practical experience with it."

Casper: "Yes, we really learned to work as a united group. We know what each of us can contribute to the project and how we can use each other's strengths to achieve a common goal, instead of it becoming a battle over who can do things first."

Hans: "Something that I also see as a great gift is that we trained ourselves in parallel problem solving. We’re not all standing there together kicking the same tire. We work together on the same problem from different angles, and this is good experience because it’s also how things work in the labour market."

Claudia: "Yes, group work is a natural part of a job. So it's great to actually use it and be validated that you're good at it. Although you intuitively use elements of PBL in your work, it’s a good exercise to formalize it so that you become more aware of the process."

Translated by LeeAnn Iovanni, AAU Communication and Public Affairs.