Portraits of Problem-Based Learning: A cross-faculty comparison of students' experiences

This book compares university students'experiences of problem-based learning in three professional educational programmes; Psychology, Engineering and Physiotherapy. Twenty students from each of the programmes were interviewed and the transcriptions subsequently subjeced to a qualitative analysis.The ways the different groups of students perceive of the characteristics of the pedagogical approach, the meaning and function of course objectives and their accounts of the varying approaches to studying in relation to course examinations, provide three distinct portraits of problem-based learning. The book suggests that the differences in how students perceive of the pedagogical approach reflect different perspectives of knowledge and learning embedded in their respective professional discipline. The book is challenging university teachers intending to implement problem-based learning in their courses to reflect on how their own epistemological standpoints impact on their views on learning and teaching.

Professor Madeleine Abrandt Dahlgren works at Linköping University, Sweden within the Faculty of Educational Sciences and the Faculty of Health Sciences. Research interests concern professional learning and the relationship between higher education and working life and the study of pedagogical processes within health care and medical education.