Traditional polymer materials

including plastics

rubbers

fibers

coatings

adhesives

and polymer composite materials

etc

.

have surpassed the metal materials in volume

and taken indispensable roles for daily life and industries

greatly improving the quality of people's life. High performance engineering polymer materials have been applied diversly in the areas of national defense

aerospace

transportation

shipping

oil extraction

and chemical engineering. Therefore

the curriculum of

Polymer Materials

is becoming a mandatory course for chemistry and materials majors. However

due to the wide variety of polymer materials

scattered knowledge points

boring descriptive contents and lack of applicability

the course teaching process is less attractive for student to concentrate and participate. A measure of research-based learning was thus taken to allow the students to participate actively in the teaching process. In this paper

the process

and pros and cons of researchbased learning are summarized from the students’ perspective. The research-based learning integrated the practical training on learning

testing and presentation of a particular type of polymer materials without any predications

and should be fully performed by a team of 4-5 students. This measure could inspire the subjectivity

knowledge application and open innovation of students. Moreover

the students and teachers would communicate and improve with each other in the research-based learning process. The teachers learned to improve their guidance methods

and the students deepened their understanding of polymer materials and improved their critical thinking. Nonetheless

the research-based learning can be further optimized in terms of more laboratory cooperation

evaluation system

student engagement and teaching strategies.