What Is Problem–Based Learning?

PBL in Professional Training
PBL in Education
Nature and Characteristics of PBL Approaches
A PBL Case Study
Schema of the PBL Process
Variations in PBL Approaches
Problem Complexity and Goals

PBL in Professional Training

In their attempts to innovate learning, educators are exploring methodologies that emphasize these facets:

• Real-world challenges
• Higher-order thinking skills
• Problem-solving skills
• Interdisciplinary learning
• Independent learning
• Information-mining skills
• Teamwork
• Communication skills

PBL approaches appear to be promising in addressing most of these needs. More importantly, PBL is able to address these holistically.

PBL is by no means new. Medical colleges such as Case Western Reserve Medical School, McMaster University Medical School and the University of New Mexico Medical School explored the use of PBL as early as the 1950s. In the 1980s the consortium of medical schools in the United States, which comprises leading medical schools such as Cornell, Duke, Harvard, Johns Hopkins, Pittsburg, Stanford, Washington and Yale, was often concerned with the challenge of how to produce first-rate medical practitioners. Cuban (1999), for example, noted that the desired qualities of medical practitioners included competencies and attitudes pertaining to medical proficiency, humaneness, public service, staying abreast of new knowledge, and scientific inquiry. Communication of one's beliefs, values, knowledge and skills through coaching, advising and research was also an essential practice. There was recognition that a good medical education would include a core of essential medical knowledge and learning the “problems of medicine” rather than just acquisition of techniques and accumulation of data. It was also recommended that there should be as little separation as possible between preclinical and clinical work and that integrated teaching would be preferred. In 1988 the Harvard University Medical School adopted New Pathways, a PBL programme for all its students (Cuban, 1999).

Medical education is one of the most expensive investments anywhere in the world. Effective preparation and development of medical and health professionals is of great importance for obvious reasons. Given the immensity and rapid development of medical information and knowledge, the need for quick decision making, reasoning and problem solving, and the need to work with limited resources under constraints of short-handedness, urgency and crisis, learning has really got to be effective. Professional education and education in general can learn much from the developments in medical training (Vernon& Blake, 1993; Norman& Schmidt, 2000).

Why has PBL proliferated in medical education? Bridges and Hallinger (1995) noted that one of the arguments for the use of PBL in medical education was that empirical evidence showed medical students retaining little of what they had learnt in the basic disciplines. Furthermore, studies such as those by Balla (1990a, b) found that medical students often applied basic science knowledge incorrectly or not at all in formulating and revising clinical diagnoses. Traditionally, content knowledge is taught separately from practice to students in lectures. It has been argued that this passive accumulation of knowledge (which is detached from the real-world context) does not help learners apply knowledge to novel problem situations. PBL appears to address this gap between theory and practice. Barrows and Tamblyn (1980) observed that PBL is “learning that results from the process of working toward the understanding or resolution of a problem” (p. 18).

Norman and Schmidt (1992) wrote that there is evidence to suggest that PBL enhances:

• transfer of concepts to new problems
• integration of concepts
• intrinsic interest in learning
• self-directed learning
• learning skills

Meta-analysis of literature on PBL in medical education by Albanese and Mitchell (1993) revealed that PBL helps students in the construction of knowledge and reasoning skills compared with the traditional teaching approach. PBL is now used in most of the medical schools in the United States (Bridges& Hallinger, 1995) and in Australia (Hendry& Murphy, 1995). Many medical and health science programmes in the United Kingdom and Asia Pacific (e.g. University of Hong Kong and National University of Singapore) have also adopted PBL.

Historically, several technological universities in Europe with strong links to industry have actually adopted PBL approaches without explicitly emphasizing the approach. Aalborg University in Denmark, for example, has a tradition of asking corporations and industry to provide its postgraduate students with problems that the companies are working on or cannot solve. Problems become the starting point of the engineering curricula. The University of Maastricht in the Netherlands similarly employs the use of problems in their business and medical curricula.

Many postgraduate executive business training programmes are in essence problem-based. The programmes of institutions like Stanford University, Harvard University and INSEAD employ a prolific use of real-world problem cases as starting points and anchors for the learning of business-related disciplines. PBL, however, should not be confused with case-study approaches. In PBL, the problem rather than content knowledge is always presented first. Problems are the motivation for learning.

PBL in Education

Whilst PBL is not a new philosophy or approach to learning, it has now become an educational innovation owing to several recent developments, such as the Internet revolution and breakthroughs in multidisciplinary pursuits. Interest in PBL has also gained momentum across various disciplines, such as engineering, architecture and business (Tan et al., 2000; Savin-Baden, 2000; Little et al., 2001).

In the 1990s many high schools, junior high schools and elementary schools in the United States began to introduce PBL into their curricula. Studies such as that by Achilles and Hoover (1996) support the use of PBL as a vehicle for school improvement.

According to Robert Delisle (1997, 7):

Problem-based learning (PBL) works well with all students, making its strategies ideal for heterogeneous classrooms where students with mixed abilities can pool their talents collaboratively to invent a solution. These techniques also lend themselves to an interdisciplinary orientation since answering a problem frequently requires information from several academic areas … Teachers … say they have seen their students learn more material, understand more ideas, and enjoy school more.

West (1992) found that at the secondary school level PBL was effective in stimulating interest in science, enhancing knowledge construction and improving problem-solving skills. Trop and Sage (1998) advocated the use of PBL across kindergarten through grade 12 (K—12). There are now a huge number of Web sites on the use of PBL in US schools (see the Appendix for recommended sites). For example, the Web site of the Center for Problem-based Learning of the Illinois Mathematics and Science Academy (IMSA) (www.imsa.edu) provides several good examples of problems for the K—12 levels. One can also find Web sites on the use of PBL with primary-age children, such as the Jerome School District in the state of Idaho.

Impetus for the use of PBL includes its sound philosophy in the light of pedagogical and real-world developments (as discussed in the earlier chapters). Commonly cited reasons for using PBL in US schools include the value of:

• using real-life issues
• active engagement
• interdisciplinary learning
• student making choices in learning
• collaborative learning

It is also argued that PBL helps raise the quality of education through its emphasis on problem solving and thinking.

Nature and Characteristics of PBL Approaches

PBL approaches in a curriculum usually include the following characteristics (Tan, 2002c):

• The problem is the starting point of learning.
• The problem is usually a real-world problem that appears unstructured. If it is a simulated problem, it is meant to be as authentic as possible.
  
• The problem calls for multiple perspectives. The use of cross-disciplinary knowledge is a key feature in many PBL curricula. In any case, PBL encourages the solution of the problem by taking into consideration knowledge from various subjects and topics.
• The problem challenges students' current knowledge, attitudes and competencies, thus calling for identification of learning needs and new areas of learning.
• Self-directed learning is primary. Thus, students assume major responsibility for the acquisition of information and knowledge.
• Harnessing of a variety of knowledge sources and the use and evaluation of information resources are essential PBL processes.
• Learning is collaborative, communicative and cooperative. Students work in small groups with a high level of interaction for peer learning, peer teaching and group presentations.
• Development of inquiry and problem-solving skills is as important as content knowledge acquisition for the solution of the problem. The PBL tutor thus facilitates and coaches through questioning and cognitive coaching.
• Closure in the PBL process includes synthesis and integration of learning.
• PBL also concludes with an evaluation and review of the learner's experience and the learning processes.

The goals of PBL thus include content learning, acquisition of process skills and problem-solving skills, and lifewide learning. I would like to introduce the term lifewide learning to emphasize skills such as selfdirected learning, independent information mining, collaborative learning and reflective thinking. Others have used the term lifelong learning, which is entirely appropriate as it emphasizes the need for continuous learning and the timeless nature of learning. Since most educators are dealing primarily with young people (secondary and university students), who appear not too concerned about the longevity of their learning, I decided to use a somewhat different term here! In any case, the point about lifewide learning is that through PBL students acquire

The goals of PBL are content learning, acquisition of disciplinerelated heuristics and development of problem-solving skills. PBL also includes the lifewide learning goals of self-directed learning, information-mining skills, collaborative and team learning, and reflective and evaluative thinking skills.

competencies that can be transferred across various life and work situations. The skills learnt are applicable to learning in a new discipline or learning to do something new.

A PBL Case Study

Figure 3.1 illustrates the key components in PBL approaches, which will be considered in detail next using a case study.

Problem Presentation

We shall consider a simple PBL example in economics to illustrate these components and their characteristics. One of the typical topics in economics concerns the various types of business units. Students may be expected to explain the purposes and characteristics of units such as sole proprietorships, partnerships, private limited companies and public listed companies. Traditionally, a teacher would give a series of lectures beginning with one on sole proprietorship and moving on sequentially to the other types of registered businesses. However, a lecturer may choose to use a PBL approach by posing the following problem:

You and two of your friends would like to start a business to design Web pages for corporate clients. Amongst you there is a great deal of expertise in Web-based programming. Each of you agreed to put in $2,000 to start this business. How would you go about registering and setting up your business?

Problem Triggers Inquiry

Thus, instead of having a didactic delivery and students passively copying notes, students are now presented with a real-world problem scenario as the starting point of learning. Learning thus begins with meeting a somewhat messy and unstructured problem. The problem triggers learning by having students:

• define the problem
• analyse the problem
• generate ideas (and hypotheses)
• identify learning issues

Students are usually given sufficient time to study the problem individually before they are formed into groups. They are encouraged to underline key words and jot down ideas and questions that come to their minds.

PBL Stages: Initial Analysis and Generation of Learning Issues

Students work in small groups (of 3–4 people) to discuss the problem scenario. They ask themselves questions, such as what they know from the problem presented, what they need to know and what ideas come to mind. They are expected to paraphrase the problem and come up with a problem statement to describe the scope of their engagement. Many questions will arise. In this case, some of the questions raised may be:

• What is the goal of our company?
• p>What must we know about the different kinds of business units?
• Should it be a partnership or limited company?
• What are the legal requirements?
• How do we go about registering the business?

Hence, instead of being told what a partnership or limited company is and being presented with the sequence of planning and registering a business, the students now need to inquire, seek information from books and Web sites, and think about how to solve the problem. Apart from the economics perspective pertaining to types of business units, they also need to consider other perspectives, such as the legal aspects of registering a business and accounting requirements.

As the students deliberate on the problem, brainstorming and discussing collaboratively, they are expected to draw up their learning issues and objectives based on the questions raised. They then divide the work amongst themselves to seek the necessary information on their own. In a group discussion facilitated by their PBL tutor, the students refine their learning objectives into more pertinent questions that require the acquisition of deeper knowledge and insights important for their future professional practice. In this case, their learning issues and objectives may be stated in the form of questions such as the following:

• What are the various types of business units?
• What are the types of business units appropriate for the given purpose of the business?
• What are the advantages and disadvantages of a partnership versus a private limited company?
• What are the legal requirements associated with the registration of the business?

PBL Stages: Iterations of Independent and Collaborative Problem Solving, Integration of New Knowledge, Presentation and Evaluation

The questions raised provide the parameters and motivation for learning. The learning objectives are attained through self-directed learning and group discussions mediated by the tutor. Several meeting and learning sessions may follow depending on the structure of the PBL process. In a PBL course that I know, students were actually made to present a business proposal with actual forms from the registry of businesses and companies duly completed and submitted to the tutor. In the process, the students actively sought information about liabilities, tax policies and the advantages of the various types of businesses. They also went through the planning processes through active discussion and even interviewed people who were running businesses of their own.

At the closure, students contextualize and integrate their learning from presentations made by team members and peer groups. The tutor facilitates synthesis of the new knowledge and competencies acquired. The concluding session would also incorporate the students' reflection, review and evaluation of various aspects of the learning.

Schema of the PBL Process

Figure 3.2 provides a schema of a typical PBL process (Tan, 2002c). Each stage of the process will be elaborated next.

Meeting the Problem

At this stage, the problem scenario acts as a stimulus to scaffold and extend a realistic context students might encounter in the future. The activities in this first tutorial include:

• developing collegiality
• individual reading, reflection and inquiry
  
  
• commitment to team roles and to the group
• brainstorming and articulation of probable issues
• consensus on problem statement
• commitment to deliberate on problem scenario and problem analysis

Problem Analysis and Learning Issues

What follows is an induction into self-directed learning. At this stage, the students' prior knowledge is activated and ideas are generated that call for further learning. Students are required to work independently on their own, searching for information through various resources. This tutorial thus involves:

• brainstorming and analysis of problem (e.g. generation of possible explanations and hypotheses)
• identification of learning issues and formulation of learning objectives
• assignment of self-directed learning and peer teaching

Here the tutor emphasizes the idea that real-life issues are often fuzzy and, faced with problems, we need to seek theories and sometimes multidisciplinary knowledge bases to address the various issues we have to tackle. The groups then proceed to make a list of issues amongst themselves and agree to seek information from books, journals, Internet resources and so on and to come back with better-informed explanations to the issues and questions posed.

Discovery and Reporting

Following the research and self-directed learning, students report their discovery of learning to their own groups. At this peer-teaching stage, students gather to share the new information they have individually discovered.

Students practise group collaboration and communication skills through questions and the seeking of further information from one another. The PBL tutor helps ensure that key areas to be learnt are not overlooked and also quizzes students on the accuracy, reliability and validity of the information obtained.

Solution Presentation and Reflection

An iterative process follows with the discovery of learning, reporting, peer teaching and presentation of solutions. When students present their solutions to the problem scenario, a reflective and evaluative approach is taken. This involves contextualization and application of the knowledge to the situation. Students rephrase and paraphrase the knowledge acquired and demonstrate their new knowledge. Sometimes more questions may be asked. The tutor helps students to clarify doubts, to beware of gaps and to correct misconceptions or over-generalizations.

Overview, Integration and Evaluation

The integration of knowledge from various disciplines and sources and the synthesis of ideas shared bring the PBL process to closure. The review and evaluation of learning, however, forms an integral part of learning. Students are encouraged to critique their learning resources (their value, reliability and usefulness for future learning). They reflect on the new knowledge they have learnt as a result of the problem. The tutor helps summarize and integrate major principles and concepts at this stage. Group members also evaluate how they do as learners in terms of being a problem solver, a self-directed learner and as members of the team.

Variations in PBL Approaches

The PBL process described in the schema of Figure 3.2 could be part of a curriculum that takes about six weeks with one session each week. Following the formal PBL tutorials and meeting sessions, time is needed for self-directed learning. If the problem is more complex, it may take a longer period with more iterations of “problem analysis and learning issues” and “discovery and reporting” before the groups move on to the “solution presentation” phase.

Many variations are possible in the design of PBL activities depending on the purpose and goals of the curriculum. For example, Tan (2000d) modified the PBL activities of IMSA that were developed by Trop and Sage (1998) to emphasize cognitive and metacognitive learning as the “content” of learning using adventure and experiential problems. The model is as shown in Figure 3.3. In this case, the participants were immersed in an intensive one-day learning and there was less time devoted to self-directed information mining.

The type of PBL and model adopted can vary depending on the relative emphasis of the following goals:

• Acquisition of multidisciplinary content knowledge
• Acquisition of process skills and heuristics of the disciplines
• Learning of problem-solving skills
• Learning of collaborative skills
• Learning of lifewide skills

A problem could be on a particular topic, such as one specific to science:

You are joining a humanitarian mission that will be involved in erecting the building for an orphanage. Owing to the extremely hot summer and cold winter, it is important to take note of ways to maintain temperatures in the building. You have been tasked to be the “heat” consultant.

The scope of the problem could be delimited to the study of heat transfer. The problem could involve activation of prior knowledge and search for information related to heat transfer of building materials and heat flow in open and closed spaces.

On the other hand, the problem could be expanded to include a building plan and the need to optimize the use of materials and so on to accommodate a given budget. It could then involve some mathematics. The problem may also include a study of the geography of a particular city in Mongolia where knowledge of climatic conditions, location of and accessibility to transportation and so on is needed.

Figure 3.4 illustrates the various possibilities of learning that could be incorporated and emphasized through the problem. Students may also be expected to write and present their reports, in which case their language and writing skills would also be incorporated. Apart from expanding the multiple disciplines, the goals of the PBL module might include emphasis on teamwork and presentation skills.

Problem Complexity and Goals

The nature and scope of the problems and the PBL cycle to be adopted will depend on the goals of using PBL. Many innovations are thus possible. When the goals of using PBL are broader and more multifaceted, the problem may be more complex and a longer PBL cycle may be required.

Figure 3.5 depicts the types of problems that could be presented in PBL, while Figure 3.6 shows the extent of lifewide skills to be incorporated as a continuum. Some PBL modules are designed primarily to emphasize skills such as information mining and collaboration; as such the nature of the problem presented and the learning environment designed will be very different.

The kind of PBL to be infused into the curriculum also depends on the profile and maturity of the students and their previous experiences, the flexibility of the existing curriculum, assessment expectations, and the time and resources available. The lifewide goals of the PBL module will have implications on the degree of facilitation, mediation and scaffolding needed.

As observed by Barrows (1986), there are many possible combinations of design variables in PBL approaches. There can also be a combination of teaching approaches with PBL. For example, Armstrong (1991) noted that a hybrid model was practised in Harvard Medical School where PBL, lectures, laboratory sessions and other teaching strategies are incorporated in the curriculum.

In short, PBL involves using real-world problems to trigger learning and optimizing on the power of problems to incorporate key learning processes. The design of PBL will depend on the goals and outcomes that we wish to accomplish to impact on learning.