Problem-based learning is introduced and compared with other more traditional forms of teaching. It is argued that one advantage of PBL is that it provides a mechanism for severing the reliance on the teachers knowledge base and empowers students to teach themselves.
PBL may be utilised not only within entire degree courses which follow PBL structures, but also within traditional degree structures. The structural problems which may be encountered in this instance are outlined, and then case studies are used to experience of similar issues.
The two case studies presented are primarily problem-based management subjects within a traditionally structured Building degree. The subjects are from the latter two years of a four year program. The subjects are outlined and the results of student evaluation and feedback are discussed.
The paper concludes with a discussion of key points for the development of problem-based programs within traditional teacher-based course structures.
Woods described teacher-based programs as "the teacher selects the knowledge, creates the learning environment, develops and uses the evaluation materials, presents knowledge and the problems, and provides a personal image of a professional." (Woods, 1985) Control rests with the teacher. The form of learning which has been referred above as traditional most closely fits the category of teacher-based.
The second form of learning - which is increasingly being used - makes use of extensively documented material presented holistically. Distance education is a good example of this, whereby the full curriculum is established and documented at the commencement of the program, and students then work at their own pace through the program. Woods describes media based learning as "...the teacher selects the knowledge and the sequencing and may provide self test and evaluation material. The students can control the pacing and sequencing. ...it is more difficult for students to see a professional in action, and to assimilate the so-called tacit information in the discipline."
Problem based learning is similarly gaining increased acceptance. However the approach is fundamentally different in that it requires the use of a problem as the primary teaching mechanism. Woods argues "a learning situation is presented before any knowledge is given. Then once the knowledge is acquired, it is applied back to the problem. The students are in control because they must select the knowledge needed to solve the problem, learn that knowledge and relate it to the problem. They select their own pacing and sequencing. Often they evaluate themselves. ...The teacher or professional - to illustrate professional behaviour and to provide tacit information - is usually missing."
It is important to realise that any particular program will not be wholly within any one category, and that shades of grey exist across an entire course, within individual subjects or units, and within specific problems.
The following table summarises learning responsibility within Woods three different teaching methods, and examines different aspects of learning within each. These are an extraction from the Woods definition.
Table 1: Table of learning responsibility
| Elements of learning | |||
| Provision of the learning environment, & teaching materials | |||
| Sequencing | |||
| Timing of exercised/problems | |||
| Learning responsibility | |||
| Professional image | |||
| Assessment | |||
| Control |
It is necessary to examine the underlying structure of teaching programs, in order to understand the properties of problem-based learning within a traditional or teacher-based framework.
According to Bawden (1985) "our entire formal education system has been grounded in belief of learning as the passive accumulation of preserved quanta of knowledge, generated from experiences often long forgotten and certainly remote from the contemporary student. The model forges an awful reliance on both the aggregation of specialised and selective packages of second-hand information and on those who disseminate it to us in the name of teaching". This rather jaundiced view suggests that formal education is traditionally carried out by the teacher drawing upon knowledge accumulated by various mechanisms such as experience, reading, their own learning, and is accordingly reliant on the quality of both that knowledge base, and the ability of the teacher to disseminate it. It could be argued that this reliance on the teacher's knowledge base is both the strength and weakness of the system.
It is easy to see the relevance of traditional methods to those areas where rules, procedures, formula etc. are applicable. Thus, for mathematics, engineering and contract administration, the attraction of a traditional program is significant. It can also be seen that the reliance on the teacher's knowledge base is less critical - as it is easily supplemented by standard references and guides.
Professional programs such as Building, Architecture and Medicine include a significant number of academic disciplines where the knowledge base of the teachers is often considered more significant than the reference material. In a traditional teaching format this leads to Bawden's "awful reliance" with the quality of programs being derived extensively from the quality and experience of the teacher. Thus the ideal candidate for teaching management of construction is someone who has learnt all the relevant material during their own education and undertaken continuing education during a long and successful career which has included a wide range of experience of all facets of the industry. For good measure they are an experienced researcher able to guide students as they explore the bounds of the teacher's knowledge. Such individuals may be difficult to locate. Importantly this description excludes the professional academic - who in many ways forms the lifeblood of the university system.
It is within the professional degrees such as Medicine, Architecture and Building, to name a few, that the limitations of the traditional approach have been recognised. In order to enable students to learn the professional discipline, an alternative method is used which seeks to sever the reliance between the teachers knowledge base and the student's need to learn from it. Rather the student is empowered to seek the answers from a wide range of resources (including the teachers) and is guided in that learning process by a series of problems instead of a structured curriculum along academic discipline lines. This is the Problem Based Learning (PBL) approach.
Boud (1985) argues that "within PBL the starting point for learning should be a problem, a query or a puzzle that the learner wishes to solve. Organised forms of knowledge, academic disciplines, are only introduced when the demands of the problem require them." It follows that a full implementation of PBL would require that the teaching of academic disciplines would be subverted to the solving of problems.
In order to subvert academic disciplines to the solving of problems, it would be necessary to devolve all academic teaching within a course into a problem-centric approach. Courses would need to be designed across the board as problem-centric, and problems would need to be determined which ensure that all of the traditional academic points are learnt by students as they use the necessary material to solve problems.
Another aspect of PBL which Boud identified is the requirement for student-centric learning or self learning. Once again the implication is that in order to enable problem-centric learning, self learning should be applied across the whole of the course.
There are many examples of successful whole-degree PBL programs within Australia, of particular note is the Building course at the University of Newcastle.
How then does PBL work when applied within particular subjects within a course which takes a traditional teacher-based program centred about academic disciplines?
However the introduction of PBL within a traditional framework is associated with structural problems. PBL is not implemented throughout the entire course. The academic content of the course remains primarily taught through traditional teacher-based mechanisms. The PBL subject exists in an inappropriate environment and may be subject to the following risks:
Students at the completion of the subject should:
The bulk of the students are Building and Quantity Surveying students, however, Architecture and Engineering students may also be take the subject. The building and architecture students will have completed the first three years of their course plus a minimum of 12 months work experience.
While the subject utilises problem-based learning, it also includes formal lectures which are assessed by examination at the end of the first semester. The remaining 50% of the assessment is assessed in three stages, based upon a development proposal which the students conceive and analyse. The projects are developed in teams.
Whilst there was some polarisation of student performance - the weaker students were not vocal and to some extent were protected by the team-based approach.
General comment from the students about the subject included that it was the most interesting and challenging experienced during the course and that the projects were seen as being extremely valuable.
The student numbers doubled to 38 in 1994. This allowed groups of weaker students to aggregate. Staff involvement was not increased in proportion to student numbers, and the principal lecturer reduced involvement in order to initiate the new Management of Construction 3 subject (refer below).
While the best students still performed equivalently to previous years, in fact the class assessment grades were consistent with previous years, levels of student dissatisfaction rose significantly. This situation worsened as the subject moved from the lecture program (Semester 1) to the solely problem based program (Semester 2). This is clearly indicated by the results to the University's stem questions which were as follows:
| Project Organisation - 1994 | |||
| The objectives of the subject were made clear | |||
| Program assisted me to achieve the subject's objectives | |||
| The subject was well taught | |||
| The subject challenged my intellectual ability | |||
| My ability to undertake independent study was improved through taking the subject | |||
| In this subject, the teaching staff are responsive and supportive of the needs of students | |||
| I have received useful feedback on previous questionnaires completed in my course | |||
| Average |
It is interesting to note that questions for which there should have been no change (1 & 2) had decreased during the year.
The changes in circumstances of the subject in 1994 and the poor student evaluation which resulted, demonstrate clearly that there is a fine line between student enthusiasm and rejection of a problem-based program.
At the conclusion of the course students should be able to:
The subject adopts a problem-based learning approach, without formal lectures. Each student is assigned their own unique building, designed by 5th year Architecture students, and they must solve the buildability, management and scheduling for this building in association with three other students as the proposed buildings share a common site.
The subject content includes: management techniques, alternative forms of contract and site management; alternative methods of project procurement;. methods of construction including the examination of buildability, site information management, time management techniques including project planning, the use of a schedule as a target, project work sequencing and reporting project progress. The students are required to work as a team prepare linked sub-project schedules.
Only Building and Quantity Surveying students are involved and the subject is undertaken prior to work experience.
The subject is assessed by staged submissions of a formal report. The stages are as follows:
Due to the limitations of the subject, the range of issues which may be examined in depth are restricted and students select their own areas of interest.
General comment about the subject included that it was one of the most interesting and challenging experienced during the course and that the projects were seen as being extremely valuable. The workload was considered excessive but was accepted as being a necessary evil by most students. They valued the tasks, in particular the scheduling, and considered it most relevant to their careers.
The results to the University's stem questions were as follows:
| Management of Construction 3 - 1994 | ||
| The objectives of the subject were made clear | ||
| Program assisted me to achieve the subject's objectives | ||
| The subject was well taught | ||
| The subject challenged my intellectual ability | ||
| My ability to undertake independent study was improved through taking the subject | ||
| In this subject, the teaching staff are responsive and supportive of the needs of students | ||
| I have received useful feedback on previous questionnaires completed in my course | ||
| Average |
The contrast between the results for question 3 (4.43) and 4 (2.14) was of particular interest, as it suggests that the questions are not appropriate for the subject. Students annotated comments indicated that the latter low score was because the subject was not in fact "taught" but employed self-learning, and that there was some resentment to this. The overall low result indicates that there are still structural problems with both the subject and the review process.
The structural problems identified indicate that to design a good subject based on PBL within a teacher-based program, the following points must be addressed:
If PBL is to be utilised, then there are a number of issues which must be addressed. These primarily revolve around empowering the student toward self-learning and providing an environment in which they are able to assume the responsibility for their own learning without suffering alienation.
Boud, D. (1985) Problem-based learning in perspective. In Problem-Based Learning in Education for the Professions, Boud, D. (Ed) HERDSA, Sydney.
Stretton, A. (1985) Problem-based learning and the academic-practitioner gap. In Problem-Based Learning in Education for the Professions, Boud, D. (Ed) HERDSA, Sydney.
Woods (1985) Problem-based learning and problem solving. In Problem-Based Learning in Education for the Professions, Boud, D. (Ed) HERDSA, Sydney.
Email Brian David Phillips at phillips@nccu.edu.tw.
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