PRESCRIPCIONES TECNICAS GENERALES

Since its inception a large number of research papers and studies have been presented in regard to research into problem-based learning. Initially the papers originated from medicine but as the pedagogy was transferred and adapted to other disciplines, research began to appear in journals from multiple disciplines. The studies that have been conducted on problem-based learning groups have a tendency to fall into one of four areas of interest; (a) the role of the tutor, (b) the role of assessment, (c) group behaviour within problem- based learning groups and (d) problem-based learning problems. The following sections outline the research that has taken place to date on these four key areas starting with problem-based learning tutors.

Contained within Barrows’ aforementioned characterisation of problem-based learning (Barrows 1996 p.8) is his description of the role of a problem-based learning tutor as “… someone who did not give students a lecture or factual information, did not tell the students whether they were right or wrong in their thinking, and did not tell them what they ought to study or read” and goes on to state that “It seems generally agreed now that the best tutors are those who are expert in the area of study, only they must also be expert in the difficult role of tutor”.

The second statement without reference to any particular study or research directs us to one of the major focuses of many researchers: the tutor role in problem-based learning. This has attracted the interest of many researchers and has led to an abundance of literature from many different fields. According to (Schmidt & Moust 2000 p. 3), “The role of the tutor is to facilitate students’ learning processes and to stimulate students to collaborate in an effective way” or according to Gijselaers (1996 p.13) “a tutor, whose role is to facilitate the learning process by asking questions and monitoring the problem-solving process” and

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expands later in the same paper on the role of the tutor “In the perspective of teaching metacognitive skills, a tutor asks questions that monitor the progress of problem solving action. This models the kind of questions that students should be asking to identify the nature of the problem and the kind of knowledge required to understand it. These questions also lead students from the concrete problem and toward conceptual knowledge.” The tutor has to skate a fine line between involving the students in discussing the issues and evolving this discussion to the critical learning issues without entering into the realm of a teacher centred approach of a multitude of questions and mini lectures. Wilkerson (1995) conducted a study in which medical students at Harvard University were asked to describe how tutors were helpful in problem-based learning groups and obtained four helpful behaviours of teachers:

 Balancing student direction with assistance;  Contributing knowledge and experience;  Creating a pleasant learning environment;  Simulating critical evaluation of ideas.

Whereas Schmidt & Moust (1995) based their model on questionnaires completed by students after completing their course and they advocate three interrelated qualities of an effective tutor:

 An attitude of caring for and interest in the students;

 A knowledge base related to the learning objectives of the course;

 The ability to transfer this knowledge base into terms readily accessible by students.

Schmidt (1994) found that there was no relationship between tutor expertise and student achievement within the health science courses. Silver & Wilkerson (1991) point to the fact that tutors with more content expertise had a tendency to take on a more directive role in problem-based learning and that this could impede the development of students’ skills in active self directed learning. Whereas Moust et al. (1989) point out that the expertise of the tutors may be of greater benefit to students due to the quality of expert tutors interventions.

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Barrows advocates that the ideal tutor is one who is expert both in the content of the course and in the tutoring process:

It is far better to have an expert working with the students, one who knows if the students are in a quandary or are going down the wrong track; but who also knows how to get them to discover this for themselves, to learn by making mistakes, and to reason their way to the right conclusions. Such an expert can provide the students with better evaluative feedback about their learning, relevant to their own objectives. (Barrows & Tamblyn p.106)

Wilkerson (1994 p.308) points out that “for the purpose of tutoring, expertise may simply mean having knowledge about the specific case and what learning issues it is designed to raise”.

Eagle et al. (1992) agree with this statement but also point out in their study that expert tutors have an effect on the number of, the congruency of and the amount of time spent on learning issues, with students who had expert tutors producing twice as much learning issues and spending twice as much time on them. Zeitz in (Anderson et al. 2003 p.3) comments, however, that the above points on tutor expert/non expert become redundant with the advent of students experience in problem-based learning, “students enrolled in a PBL curriculum are so acculturated and so highly skilled in student-centred, self directed learning that they begin to function independently of the tutor the vast majority of the time and begin to stop caring about the facilitators opinion as they begin to value their own work so highly”. In summation on tutors and the expert/non expert question, there seems to be as many studies with positive reflections on non-expert tutors as there are against. However, this question does not have any real bearing on this study as all tutors were tutors with expert knowledge of the subject and there was no choice of having non-expert tutors. Dolmans et al. (2001 p.886) argue that “tutor’s performance is not a stable characteristic, but is rather situation-specific…the contextual circumstances shown to influence tutors’ behaviour are the quality of the cases, structures of PBL courses, students’ level of prior knowledge and the level of functioning in tutorial groups”. In the same paper Dolmans et al tested the effects that group dynamics skills of a tutor had on the evaluation they received from the students. In this regard they presented data obtained from a questionnaire that they produced which indicated that tutors’ group-dynamics skills did contribute positively

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towards the performance scores they received. Another area of research in regard to tutor performance is that of interventions, with some tutors finding it frustrating or difficult to know when to intervene. This problem is discussed by Maudsley (2002) who commented on the emotional difficulties of taking on a facilitation role, and Kaufmann & Holmes (1996), who, as a result of the observed difficulties, identified the need for further training in intervening appropriately. Finally, in regard to approaches to learning Moust et al. (2005 p.675) argue that the “tutor can have considerable influence on the developments of students’ abilities as self directed learners”. Tutors can help students gradually to master cognitive and regulative learning skills to become independent and lifelong learners”. If tutors have an effect on the meta-cognitive development of problem-based learning students then they can also influence the development of approaches to leaning skills.