Quality and Stability Assurance of Learning Outcomes in Short-Term Educational Projects

Abstract

The paper examines the reliability of learning outcomes as an object of management in short-term educational projects. Such projects are implemented under conditions of time deficits, high intensity, and increased requirements for students' practical skills. An approach that integrates cyclical learning, formative assessment, and regular monitoring is proposed. This allows for the timely identification and correction of deficiencies in training. The research methodology relies on the analysis of works in educational project management, instructional design, and educational quality assessment. Empirical data were collected during a pedagogical experiment on military-applied training of students in the 2025–2026 academic year. Observation, testing, comparative analysis, and methods of mathematical statistics were applied to verify the results. The findings indicate that traditional assessments do not reflect whether skills remain sustainable after the completion of military-applied training. For short-term projects, not only current scores are important, but also the students' ability to retain material and replicate actions in practice. Four components of learning reliability are identified: retention of results, stability of actions, transfer of knowledge to new tasks, and adaptation to changing conditions. The experiment confirmed that cyclical classes, formative assessment, and continuous monitoring significantly improve these indicators. The scientific novelty of the study lies in the theoretical substantiation of the reliability of learning outcomes as an object of management in short-term projects. Furthermore, the conceptual framework for such management has been developed. It is based on continuous monitoring, formative assessment, and the cyclical organization of the entire educational process. The practical significance of the work is that the developed methodology can be used to model and implement short-term educational projects in universities. The proposed approach helps improve the monitoring of learning outcomes and significantly increases the quality of military-applied training under time constraints.