It has been held that heuristic training alone is not enough for developing one's mathematical thinking. One missing component is a mathematical point of view. Many educational researchers have proposed problem-based curricula to improve students' views of mathematical thinking. The present study reports findings regarding effects of a problem-based calculus course, using historical problems, to foster Taiwanese college students' views of mathematical thinking. The present study consisted of three stages. During the initial phase, 44 engineering majors' views on mathematical thinking were tabulated by a six-item, open-ended questionnaire and nine randomly selected students were invited to participate in follow-up interviews. Students then received an 18-week problem-based calculus course in which mathematical concepts were problematized in order to challenge their personally expressed empirical beliefs in doing mathematics. Several tasks and instructional approaches served to reach the goal. Near the end of the semester, all participants answered the same questionnaire and the same students were interviewed to pinpoint their shift in views on mathematical thinking. It was found that participants were more likely to value logical sense, creativity, and imagination in doing mathematics. Further, students leaned toward a conservative attitude in the certainty of mathematical knowledge. Participants focus seemingly shifted from mathematics as a product to mathematics as a process. / Graduation date: 2003

In this thesis, the aim was to attain a deeper understanding according to the students meaning of learning related to their own responsibility and independence within a framework of an educa¬tional programme. An empirical study with an ethnographic approach was carried out during one term of a nursing programme that uses the PBL-approach. Based on observations, conversations, inter¬views and documents, three narratives were formulated. One describes the phases students experience in the planned curricula. Periods characterised of chaos, uncertainty and a heavy workload, alternate with periods of ‘cosmos’, optimism, curiosity and satisfaction. The second narrative is about students' learning objectives while realising that they have to make choices and decisions on their own to succeed. A dialectic driving force emerging from frustration and stimulation, chaos and cosmos, results in questions about what to learn and how to act. The third narrative describes how students handle these questions. The narratives reveal two dimensions. One concerns how the students form attitudes about the relevance of learning objectives and how they go about learning a knowledge base necessary for their future profession. The other dimension takes as its starting point the fact that students try to manage their learning situation taking into consideration the framework of the educa¬tional programme. These dimensions were further analysed using theoretical references. The first dimension was analysed from the perspective of teacher/learner control and a didactic analysis of the meaning of an educational setting. The second dimension was analysed on the basis of phenomenographic learning theory. As regards responsibility and independence there seems to be a point in abandoning the concept of self-directed learning. Instead of emphasising self, the interaction between people, the individual and the educational framework and the interaction with content, are found to be fundamental. This interaction includes communication, dialogue and active participation in all the parts of a learning situation. Based on the results of this study, I claim that the driving force in student-centred learning is the dialectic relation between frustration and stimulation, chaos and cosmos. This stimulates the students to engage in the teachers' traditional didactic ques¬tions concerning an educational programme: what are we going to study, how and why, and what are the objectives? The students' conduct as regards independence, vis à vis dependence, are related to a dialectic relationship between the prerequisites provided by the educational frame¬work and the students' interpretation and ability to use them. Expressions of responsibility and independence emerge as choices and decisions concerning the didactic questions, initiative, activity, search for opportunities to reflect and co-operate and self-confidence. The opposite, dependence, is characterised by strategies for “survival”. The students plan their learning situa¬tion so that the examinations and assignments can be successfully tackled, and the learning situation takes on features of a surface approach. I believe that further insights into learning in student-centred education can be found in the two dialectic relationships described above.

The main purpose of this meta-analysis was to investigate the effectiveness of PBL not only on student achievement and motivation in science, but also on attitudes towards science and skills in primary, secondary and higher educational levels. In addition, the effects of some moderator variables including publication type, research design, teacher effect, researcher effect, country, subject matter, school level, PBL mode, length of treatment, group size, type of questions and assessment instrument on the effectiveness of PBL were also examined in the scope of this meta-analysis. 147 effect sizes were revealed from 88 primary studies selected to be included in the meta-analysis based on the inclusion criteria. Random-effects model rather than fixed-effect model was chosen to be conducted to compute effect sizes indicating the effect of PBL on different outcomes while mixed-effect and fully random-effects model were used while performing analog ANOVA for moderator analysis. The results clearly show that PBL is more effective on different outcomes when compared to traditional teaching methods. The results indicate an overall medium mean effect size of 0.633 for PBL effectiveness. More specifically, PBL has a large impact with a large effect size of 0.820 on students&rsquo / achievement in science subjects in different levels and reveals medium effect sizes of 0.566, 0.616, and 0.565 for students&rsquo / attitude towards science, motivation in science and different kinds of skills, respectively. Moderator analyses indicate that publication type, country, subject area, school level and length of treatment have a noteworthy impact on the effectiveness of PBL.

I dagens grundskola ställs en mängd olika krav på elever och på de kunskaper som bör besittas. Det beror på att skolan har till uppgift att förbereda eleverna inför det föränderliga samhälle vi lever i. För att kunna göra detta krävs att de är aktiva och delaktiga i den undervisning som rör dem och för att öka denna delaktighet finns en mängd olika arbetsmodeller som alla handlar om att förbättra elevers aktivitet. Bland dessa finns en modell som kallas problembaserat lärande och förkortas PBL. Syftet med det här examensarbetet är att undersöka om, och i så fall hur ett problembaserat lärande kan användas i grundskolans tidigare år som en elevaktiv undervisningsmodell. Anledningen till att detta ämne och syfte valts är för att merparten av den forskning som finns som rör PBL fokuserar på högre studier medan de lägre undervisningsnivåerna har undersökts relativt lite. I ett försök att minska kunskapsglappet har denna undersökning syftat till att påvisa hur lärare arbetar och tidigare har arbetat med problembaserat lärande i grundskolans tidigare år. Denna undersökning har genomförts med hjälp av kvalitativt inriktade interjuver vilka resulterade i slutsatserna att det är möjligt att arbeta med PBL som en elevaktiv undervisningsmodell i grundskolan och dess tidigare år samt att eleverna tycks bli mer aktiva och delaktiga. Det är grundat på resultatet av undersökningen där några av personerna som deltog ansåg sig arbeta eller tidigare ha arbetat med problembaserat lärande och gjort detta på ett tillfredsställande sätt. Dessutom tycktes eleverna, enligt undersökningspersonerna, bli mer aktiva och delaktiga än i traditionell undervisning.

University of Macau / Faculty of Science and Technology / Department of Computer and Information Science

The purpose of the study is to investigate the relative effect of problem-based learning (PBL) and traditionally designed science instruction (TDSI) on students&rsquo / academic achievement and performance skills in the unit of genetics after controlling for students&rsquo / prior knowledge, prior performance skills, reasoning ability, and learning approach. The sample consisted of 192 eight grade students from a public elementary school in Ankara. Four classes instructed by two science teachers were randomly assigned as experimental and control groups. The experimental group students were taught the subject through PBL, while the control group students received the TDSI. Students in experimental group dealt with ill-structured problems based on real-life working in small groups and individually. On the other hand, students in control group received an instruction based on teacher explanations and textbooks. Genetics Achievement Test, Test of Logical Thinking, and Learning Approach Questionnaire were administered as pre-tests to students in both groups to determine their prior knowledge and prior performance skills, reasoning ability, and learning approach, respectively. After the treatment, Genetics Achievement Test was administered again as a post-test to compare the effectiveness of PBL and TDSI on students&rsquo / achievement and performance skills in Genetics. Multivariate Analysis of Covariance (MANCOVA) was used to investigate the effect of problem based learning and traditionally designed science instruction on students&rsquo / academic achievement and performance skills in Genetics when students&rsquo / prior knowledge, prior performance skills, logical thinking abilities and learning approaches are controlled. Results of the study revealed that students in PBL classes had higher mean scores on Genetics Achievement Test developed to measure academic achievement and performance skills in the unit of genetics. Therefore, the PBL students appeared to be better compared to the TDSI students in terms of genetics understanding and at using relevant information in addressing the problem, articulating uncertainties, organizing concepts, and interpreting information.

The purpose of the study was to investigate the relative effect of problem based learning with a non local perspective (PBL1), problem based learning with a local perspective (PBL2) and traditionally designed environmental education (TRD) lectures on elementary school (7th grade) students&rsquo / environmental attitude / specifically by the 3 dimensions as / general environmental awareness, general attitude toward solutions, and awareness of individual responsibility. The sample consisted of 95 7th grade students from a public elementary school in Nigde. Three classes instructed by the same science teacher are randomly assigned as control group and experimental groups. All the groups were taught the topic &ldquo / Why do ecosystems change?&rdquo / for four weeks. On the other hand, the control group was taught through TRD, one of the experimental groups was taught through PBL with a non local perspective, and the other experimental group was taught through PBL with a local perspective. Students in TRD group received an instruction based on teacher explanations and textbooks. On the other hand, the experimental groups dealt with ill- structured real life problems working in small groups. The problem of PBL1 group was selected as &ldquo / the declining environmental conditions of Manyas Lake&rdquo / and the problem of PBL2 group was selected as &ldquo / the declining v environmental conditions of Akkaya Dam in Nigde&rdquo / to create a non local / local difference between the experimental groups. Environmental Attitude Questionnaire (EAQ) was administered to all groups as pre-test to determine the prior environmental attitude. The worksheets, on the other hand, used by experimental groups in their group work were examined to reveal the quality of the process. After the treatment, EAQ was administered to all groups as a post-test to compare the effectiveness of PBL1, PBL2 and TRD on students&rsquo / environmental attitude. Analysis of covariance (ANCOVA) was performed to investigate the effect of traditionally designed EE, Problem Based designed EE, and Problem Based with a local perspective designed EE on students&rsquo / general environmental awareness, awareness of individual responsibility and general attitude toward solutions when students&rsquo / prior general environmental awareness, prior awareness of individual responsibility and prior general attitude toward solutions are controlled. The results of the study revealed that, students in PBL2 group had significantly more positive environmental attitudes in general environmental awareness and general attitude toward solutions dimensions than TRD group and in all three dimensions of the questionnaire than PBL1 group. Moreover, TRD group had significantly more positive attitude than PBL1 group in students&rsquo / awareness of individual responsibility determined after the treatment.

The purpose of the study was to determine the effects of problem-based learning (PBL) on 9th grade students&rsquo / geometry achievement. The study was conducted in a rural town of Ankara with 44 ninth-grade high school students. The randomized pretest-posttest control group design was used. The experimental group was instructed with hybrid PBL and the control group was instructed with traditional teaching methods. The treatment was given for 4 hours every week for a total of six weeks. Geometry Achievement Test (GAT) was administrated as pre-test, post test and retention test to both groups to measure students&rsquo / academic achievement in geometry, was developed by the researcher. This test included 18 items which were related to polygons and circular region. In order to analyze the obtained data, Mann-Witney U, Independent T-test and one-way repeated measures Analysis of Variance were used. Analysis of post test results indicated that there was no statistically significant mean rank difference between students who were instructed by traditional teaching method and those who were instructed by PBL. There was also no significant mean difference between retention of GAT scores of the two groups. In addition, a statistically significant change in GAT scores of students who were instructed by PBL across three time periods (pre-treatment, post treatment and retention) was found. There were statistically significant mean differences between their prior and post GAT scores / and between their prior and retention GAT scores of the PBL method group. On the other hand, there was no statistically significant mean difference between post and retention GAT scores. The present study suggests that PBL can contribute to students&rsquo / retention of geometry achievement

The purpose of this study was to determine whether playing a problem-based learning (PBL) computer game, Alien Rescue III, would promote continuing motivation (CM) to learn science, and to explore the possible sources of CM. Another goal was to determine whether CM and interest to learn science in the classroom were identical constructs. CM was defined as the pursuit of academic learning goals in noninstructional contexts that were initially encountered in the classroom. Alien Rescue was played for a total of 9 hours in the seventh grade of a private middle school with 44 students, total, participating. The study used a design-based research approach that attempted to triangulate quantitative and qualitative methods. A science knowledge test, and two selfreport questionnaires--one measuring motivation and one measuring CM--were administered preintervention, postintervention, and follow-up. Qualitative data was also collected, including student interviews, classroom observations, written responses, and a science teacher interview. Repeated measures ANOVAs were used to determine any significant changes in scores. A multiple regression analysis was used to explore whether a model of CM could be determined using the Eccles’ expectancy-value achievement motivation model. The constant comparative method was used to obtain relevant information from the qualitative data. Based on contradictory quantitative and qualitative findings, results were mixed as to whether students exhibited an increase in CM to learn space science. Students continued to freely engage Alien Rescue during the mid-class break, but this does not strictly adhere to the definition of CM. However, many students did find space science more interesting than anticipated and developed increased desire to learn more in class, if not outside of class. Results also suggest that CM and interest in learning more in class are separate but related constructs. Finally, no satisfactory model emerged from the multiple regression analysis but based on students’ interviews, continuing interest to learn is influenced by all the components of Eccles’ expectancy-value model. Response effects may have confounded quantitative results. Discussion includes challenges of researching in classrooms, CM, and Eccles’ motivational model, and the tension between PBL and game based approaches. Future design recommendations and research directions are provided. / text

This report documents the experiences and applications to practice of a secondary science teacher, instructional coach, and educational consultant performing academic research on surface tension in thin films and self-diffusion in nanocomposites in a chemical engineering lab setting. Throughout this experience, the author developed knowledge for and of engineering teaching through authentic learning experiences. These learning experiences will be used as a model to assist mentee teachers in developing authentic learning experiences for students that create an awareness of engineering while fostering engineering habits of mind and an understanding of the engineering design process. / text