Characteristics of Problems for Problem-Based Learning: The Students’ Perspective
By Nachamma Sockalingam, Henk G. Schmidt. 2011
131 citations recorded by the source corpus.
This study aimed to identify salient problem characteristics perceived by students in problem-based curricula. To this end, reflective essays from biomedical students (N = 34) on characteristics of good problems were text-analyzed. Students identified eleven characteristics, of which they found the extent to which the problem leads to desired learning outcomes as the most important characteristic. The extent to which the problem stimulates elaboration and the extent to which the problem promotes team effort were considered to be the least important problem characteristics. We clustered the eleven characteristics into two categories, “features” or “functions,” based on the perceived roles of the characteristics. Identification and clustering of the eleven characteristics provide a useful basis for future problem design and evaluation. Problems are considered to be one of the three key elements of problem-based learning (PBL); the other elements are students and tutors (Majoor, Schmidt, Snellen-Balendong, Moust, & Stalenhoef-Halling, 1990). Problems in PBL refer to the instructional materials presented to students to trigger their learning processes. Problems are often presented in text format, sometimes with pictures and computer simulations. They typically describe situations or phenomena set in real-life contexts, which require students to explain or resolve the presenting issues (Hmelo-Silver, 2004). The current study aimed to understand which characteristics of problems are perceived by students to be associated with good problems. While it is possible that students and problem designers may value different aspects of problems, understanding the students’ perceptions will allow us to gain an insight into what motivates or helps the students to learn so that we can incorporate these characteristics in future problems to determine if students’ perceptions of good problems are useful in designing problems. http://dx.doi.org/10.7771/1541-5015.1135 Characteristics of Problems for Problem-Based Learning 7 • volume 5, no. 1 (Spring 2011) In PBL, students follow the seven-step model to explain or resolve a problem (Schmidt, 1983). In this approach, students first discuss and analyze the problem in groups. This leads to the generation of several issues or topics that require exploration. Students then use these unresolved issues or topics as guidelines for their self-directed learning activities. During the period of self-directed learning, students find more information to answer or solve the problem. Following that, they reconvene, present to one another, and compile the information gathered. This results in integration of their new knowledge in the context of the problem (Hmelo-Silver, 2004). As problems initiate students’ learning processes, the quality of problems can be postulated to be crucial for students’ learning. To investigate this and examine the relationships among the various elements of PBL, Gijselaers and Schmidt (1990) asked students in a PBL curriculum to rate 1) the quality of problems, 2) the tutors’ performances, 3) their prior knowledge, 4) the extent of their group functioning, 5) time spent on individual study, and 6) their interests in the subject matter, using a rating scale. The authors then analyzed the influence of these key elements on students’ academic achievements by means of causal modeling. In their causal model, they categorized the quality of problems, tutors’ performances, and students’ prior knowledge as “input” elements; group functioning and self-study time as “process” elements; and interests and academic achievements as “output” elements. The results showed that of the three input elements, the quality of problems had a more direct and stronger influence on the various process and outcome elements, and thereby supported the postulation that a good problem leads to improved learning. A study by van Berkel and Schmidt (2000) reexamined the relationships among the earlier mentioned elements of PBL (Gijselaers & Schmidt, 1990) using the causal modeling approach as well. Results from this study confirmed and added support to the earlier findings on the importance of the quality of problems. Probing further, van den Hurk, Wolfhagen, Dolmans, and van der Vleuten (1999) investigated the influence of the quality of problems and tutorial group processes (e.g., breadth and depth of discussion in the tutorial group) on generation of useful learning issues. They found that the quality of the problems indeed had an influence on the generation of useful learning issues. This is in line with earlier work by Dolmans, Schmidt, and Gijselaers (1995), which demonstrated that the extent of correspondence between student-generated and faculty-intended learning issues could be used as a measure of the effectiveness of problems. Given the evidence for the importance of the quality of problems, Dolmans et al. (1995) contended that additional information about the nature of problems is required to improve the quality of problems. To this end, they suggested that determining the characteristics of problems is likely to provide insights on designing and assessing problems in PBL. A review of the existing PBL literature showed that while there are some studies that shed light on the characteristics of problems in PBL, these are relatively few when compared with studies on other aspects of PBL (Jonassen & Hung, 2008). We present in the next section an overview of the exist-
Subfields: Biomedical Engineering, Education, Public Health, Environmental and Occupational Health
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Citations in the corpus
- The Effect of Problem-Based Learning on the Creative Thinking and Critical Thinking Disposition of Students in Visual Arts Education. (2018, background): “Sockalingam and Schmidt (2011) explained that nonroutine problems challenge students’ thinking and learning.”