In this study we wanted to have a closer look at how a specific working team of pedagogues in the senior part of elementary school works with student influence through a pedagogical concept created by themselves. We have used qualitative interviews as a method to achieve relevant information from the pedagogues, and from students teached by the same. The purpose of the study was to investigate how the working team, through the concept, pursue real student influence within different school subjects and how the individual student is favored in his/her learning process. Another intention was to find out to what extent the students experience this influence. We also wanted to elucidate the advantages as well as the disadvantages of this concept, and to shed some light on how the informants view the future development of the concept. The result shows that consensus prevails to a large extent among teachers and students regarding the signification of real student influence in the everyday learning situation. It also appears that the students’ abilities to exercise influence vary between different school subjects. The students seem to have understood and accepted the reasons for this. The interaction between traditional teaching (in certain subjects) and the concept has resulted in the fact that students have succeeded in their learning process to a larger extent and that their engagement and sense of responsibility have increased significantly.

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Current curriculum trends promote inquiry-based student-centered strategies as a way to foster critical thinking and learning. Problem-based learning (PBL), a type of inquiry focusing on an issue or “problem,” is an instructional approach taught on the basis that science reform efforts increase scientific literacy. PBL is a constructivist approach to learning real life problems where understanding is a function of content, context, experiences, and learner goals; historical PBL situates the lesson in a historical context and provides opportunities for teaching NOS concepts. While much research exists on the benefits of historical PBL to student learning in general, more research is warranted on how teachers implement PBL in the secondary science curriculum. The purpose of this study was to examine the classroom-learning environment of four science teachers implementing a historical PBL instructional unit to identify the teachers’ understandings, successes and obstacles. By identifying teachers’ possible achievements and barriers with implementing a constructivist philosophy when executing historical PBL, educators and curriculum designers may improve alignment of the learning environment to constructivist principles. A qualitative interpretive case study guided this research study. The four participants of this study were purposefully and conveniently selected from biology teachers with at least three years of teaching experience, degrees in education, State Licensure, and completion of a PBL workshop. Data collection consisted of pre and post questionnaires, structured interviews, a card sort activity in which participants categorized instructional outcomes, and participant observations. Results indicated that the four teachers assimilated reform-based constructivist practices to fit within their preexisting routines and highlighted the importance of incorporating teachers’ current systems into reform-based teacher instruction. While participating teachers addressed a few NOS tenets, emphasizing the full range of possible NOS objectives included in historical PBL is warranted. This study also revealed the importance of creating a collaborative classroom culture and building positive student-teacher relationships when implementing PBL instruction. The four teachers agreed that the historical PBL instructional unit provided a context for learning state standards, and they positively viewed their experiences teaching the lesson. Thus findings from this study suggest that teaching science in a historical context using PBL can be effective.

ABSTRACT BACKGROUND: Although Problem-based learning (PBL) approach is a common teaching technique in medical education, its use in the field of respiratory therapy is somewhat controversial. With so many programs adopting PBL strategies, it is important to examine whether there are differences between PBL and traditional teaching approaches in regards to learning outcomes. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to investigate if there are any significant differences between PBL and lecture-based program students in their cognitive abilities in mechanical ventilation. METHODS: Two universities with BS programs in respiratory therapy were chosen—one uses PBL (15 participants) and on uses lecture-based method (24 participants). All 39 participants were given10 multiple-choice questions related to mechanical ventilation derived from the NBRC RRT written exam forms (C & D) as a pre and a post test. RESULTS: The dependent t-test showed a significant difference between the pre and post test of the lecture-based and the PBL groups, resulting in a p value of 0.006 and 0.025 respectively. The independent t-test showed a significant difference in the pre-test favoring the lecture-based group (p = 0.039). However, the independent t-test showed no significant difference in the post-test (p=0.085) CONCLUSIONS: PBL is increasing in popularity despite the fact that studies of its efficacy have been thus far inconclusive. This study has shown PBL to be effective, but not significantly more effective than traditional lecture-based methods in regards to objective test scores.

This survey aims to investigate and analyze how six teachers on a high school in Stockholm reflect on pedagogical aspects of problem based learning( PBL). The survey focuses on ana-lyzing how the teachers relate to the benefits and problems of PBL and how they reflect on the students development. The survey was conducted on a high school and the method used for the study was interviews, each taking 30-45 minutes. The outcome of the survey indicates that the teachers sees problem based learning as an alternative to what they define as tradi-tional education regarding its epistemology. They indicate that PBL allows the students to define their own questions, to be carriers of knowledge and to evolve analytic skills in relation to the basegroup. Seen from a social constructive point of view, the definition of knowledge is linked to power, authority and interests regarding who is allowed to define what knowledge is and knowledge just like PBL as a method can in this aspect be seen as institutions of our so-cial reality. They survey also shows that PBL as an institution is changing through externalization of the changing roles of both students and teachers, and that puts responsibility on students, teachers and everyone who in some way relate to PBL. How the teachers on this particular school re-lates to PBL and definition of knowledge will effect PBL as an institution through both exter-nalization and internalization.

The main aim of this study was to analyze the implementation of problem-based instruction in electrical-electronics engineering education from the perspectives of tutors and students. Secondary aim of the study was to compare engineering students&rsquo / motivation and their use of learning strategies who received their first year curriculum in problem-based learning (PBL) format, in comparison to those who received their curriculum in a conventional lecture format. A multi-method research design that incorporated case study and causal comparative designs were employed in this study. Fourteen electrical-electronics engineering students and four tutors working as instructors at this department were selected for the case study. Observations, interviews, and document analysis were used to collect qualitative data. For the causal comparative study, Motivated Strategies for Learning Questionnaire was administered to 452 freshman engineering students twice as a pre-test and after a three months period as a post-test. Multivariate Analyses of Covariance was used to compare the two groups on the dependent variables of the current study. The findings of the case study indicated students&rsquo / and tutors&rsquo / perceptions and opinions about the implementation of PBL, its strengths and weaknesses, factors affecting tutors&rsquo / and students&rsquo / performance and their improvement suggestions. The results of the causal comparative study indicated that there was a significant difference between the two groups in favor of the group receiving PBL curriculum with respect to students&rsquo / extrinsic goal orientation and test anxiety / their use of elaboration strategy / their management of effort regulation, and time and study environment.

The purpose of this study is to investigate the effect of instruction based on problem-based learning (PBL) on 7th grade students&rsquo / science achievement, attitude toward science course and scientific process skills. The study was conducted in May 2007 with 141 students and four science teachers from four middle schools in G&ouml / lbasi district of Ankara. A total of eight classes were participated in the study. Four of them were assigned randomly to control group and four of them were assigned randomly to experimental group. There are two different experimental groups. One of the experimental groups was given the PBL instruction through individual work (PBL-I). The other group took the PBL instruction by making group work (PBL-G). Two classes were assigned randomly to PBL-I group and the remaining two were assigned randomly to PBL-G. Before starting the treatments a needs analysis was conducted to develop scenarios so that they can address students&rsquo / interests. Moreover, a pilot study was conducted in the previous academic year for the instructional materials and instruments developed by the researcher. Treatments, given by the teachers, continued up to five weeks. The control group was given traditional instruction, whereas, the PBL-I group took the PBL instruction through individual work, the PBL-G group took the PBL instruction via group working. The dependent variables of the study were attitude toward the course, scientific process skills, and academic achievement. The collected data were analyzed through MANCOVA. The analyses yielded that there is no statistically significant mean difference between groups on the scores of attitude, scientific process skills and academic achievement. In addition, aptitude-treatment interaction analysis was conducted. This analysis indicated that effect of the PBL instructions differ with respect to covariates. In other words, the PBL instructions work well in some levels of the covariates, while in other levels, traditional instruction yields better results. Qualitative data were obtained through students&rsquo / self-evaluations and interviews made with students and teachers. Document analysis was conducted for the data collected through self-evaluation form. This analysis showed that PBL students mostly engaged with doing research, designing and making experiments. However, students in the control group usually, listened to their teachers, write down definitions, formulas, graphs from their teachers, and solved problems requiring mathematical operations. According to the interviews, students in general are enthusiastic about the PBL instruction.

<p>Higher education is undergoing continuous changes and new learning tools and methods are implemented. Researchers in education do not always agree upon the effectiveness of some of the methods introduced into engineering education. The present thesis consists of two case studies on educational methods introduced at the Department of Energy Technology, at Royal Institute of Technology (KTH), Sweden. The qualitative research methodology has been used in case one and a combination of qualitative and quantitative methodology has been used in the second case. The sources of evidences consisted of: unstructured interviews, analysis of video recording, questionnaires, and analysis of a variety of documents. In the first case, an educational program in heat and power technology was analysed. The second case consists in an in-depth study of group dynamics in a Problem –Based Learning course. These studies showed that the learning approach adopted by students depends strongly on the way they view the particular learning tool or method. The first case study revealed the existence of two types of learners. Surfacelearners follow the structure suggested by the designers of the multimedia program. This category of learners focuses only on the material available in the program. Deep-learners go beyond the information and the structure suggested in the program and combine different learning tools in their learning. These students do not follow the structure of the tutorials’ of the multimedia program. This study showed that students who had a strong view how to learn with a multimedia program or a learning method benefited less from the learning tools available. Students with weak views on how to learn from educational program or leaning tool benefit less from the presentation and engage in more surface learning. Self-motivated learners use the multimedia presentation in novel ways and crosscheck the information given with other material. The second study showed that students have unclear and weak views on how to learn with student-directed Problem- Based Learning model. Four types of learners were identified in Problem-Based Learning project: Leaders, Key Actors, Common Students and Social Loafers. Leaders and Key Actors are self-motivated individuals and participate most in the projects. Students who viewed themselves or were viewed as leaders were held responsible to take most of the decisions and students expected them to work more than the average student. Students who viewed themselves as common team members expected a lower workload than leaders’. Key Actors are self-motivated students who do not view themselves as separate from other group members but who participate more than others. Leaders learned more group and social processes, that they did not fully take part in, while common students learned more from the project management aspects that they did not take part in. The study also found that Problem-Based Learning groups can become very cohesive, and can develop distorted views on how to learn with Problem-Based Learning, and un-common group dynamics phenomena such as groupthink can occur in Problem-Based Learning setting.</p>

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Florida State University, 2003. / Advisor: Robert Reiser, Florida State University, College of Education, Department of Educational Psychology and Learning Systems. Title and description from dissertation home page (viewed Apr. 8, 2004). Includes bibliographical references.

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