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Traditionally PBL was a class-room based approach mediated by tutors who were physically present and supported by knowledge drawn from textbooks, libraries and supplied bundles of material. In common with the rest of higher education, PBL has become increasingly supported by the use of ICT (Baggott La Velle, McFarlane, & Brawn, 2003; Jacobs et al., 2003), most often in the form of multimedia learning resources (Boireau et al., 2012; Kaliyadan et al., 2012; Persson et al., 2010; Suebnukarn & Haddawy, 2007). However, this has led to a debate on the most effective pedagogic practice that should be adopted to make the best use of these resources (Baggott La Velle et al., 2003; Savin-Baden et al., 2011). So far, with limited exceptions (Hoban, Loughran, & Nielsen, 2011; Yeo & Tan, 2010, 2011), this search for a pedagogic base has not drawn on the literature on multimodality and how various semiotic resources are combined and interpreted (O’Halloran, 2008).

However, one problem is that both the terms multimodal and PBL are used in various ways in the literature. Thus some studies look at the application of multimodal computer-based resources in non-PBL student-centred learning environments (Boireau et al., 2012) or how a variety of practical learning approaches can enhance a student’s grasp of real-world applications (Kisely, 2001).

Within the PBL context, students are expected to work with ill-structured problems and to construct their own interpretation of the issues. At its best, working collectively, the students can debate and construct their own reasoning (Spronken- Smith, & Harland, 2009; Tan, 2004). In a group context, this process (Savery & Duffy, 1996) relies on different individuals initially having a different mental model of the problem. Thus the learning process in part is one of learning to communicate within the group or, as can so easily happen, individual members of the group will find themselves isolated (Remedios et al., 2008a). If this works well, it should help students to understand the existence of a diversity of ways of understanding and how these models are influenced by exposure to different ways of thinking and new situations (Hendry et al., 1999).

The introduction of a wider range of learning resources places emphasis on understanding the meaning process, in particular, on how different resources are combined and used. However, the concept of using semiotics to understand student interaction on a PBL module predates the adoption of multimedia resources (Lemke, 1996). Lemke (1996) moved beyond a focus just on the different semiotic resources to consider the role of medicine in framing the overall discourse resemiotically and mediating the differing use of verbal and non-verbal resources. The importance of taking a multimodal approach to understanding PBL is emphasised by the steadily expanding use of ICT, on-line learning environments and multimedia as key learning resources.

In turn, activity theory has been built into PBL in various ways. At its core, PBL seeks to encourage participant construction of academic knowledge, usually in a group context, and being increasingly reliant on some use of ICT, and in particular, on multimedia resources (Kaliyadan et al., 2012; Persson et al., 2010; Savin-Baden et al., 2011). In a PBL context the goal is student-led learning and the claimed value to PBL is that this mode of learning is more effective precisely because the students’ need to

et al., 2007; Chernobilsky et al., 2005a; Kumpulainen et al., 2009; Savin-Baden & Major, 2004).

In turn, and at its simplest (Miao, 2008), activity theory can be seen as a means to understand how individuals or groups work in pursuit of a given goal (Vygotsky, 1962). Vygotsky argued that there was an interaction between how an activity was conducted and the available tools, language constructs and wider social norms and beliefs (Leontev, 1978). On this basis how an individual will engage in PBL is a product of three issues:

• The tools available (so the introduction of multimedia resources will mean that PBL is different to the conventional early model of classroom-based interaction and knowledge search);

• The social norms that will include both the role students expect to play in the classroom and their understanding of the nature of group work; and

• The understanding of what is the purpose of the activity, especially as a common student complaint about PBL is their perception of lack of clarity as to the purpose (Hmelo-Silver, 2004; Pennell & Miles, 2009; Tan, 2004).

More formally, as introduced in the previous section, Engeström (1987) developed Leontev’s (1978) original schemata of the constituent parts of activity theory to include:

1) Object, i.e. the purpose of an action, so in a PBL classroom this is the construction of knowledge by the students;

2) Subject, i.e. those carrying out the action, so in a PBL classroom this will be the students and any tutor offering support;

3) Tools, i.e. the resources available, which can be a conventional library, special materials or a full multimedia learning environment;

4) Rules, which are either externally set or constructed to regulate a particular situation, so in a PBL classroom these will both regulate the goal agreed and the mode of interaction within the student group and between the students and their tutor;

5) Community, i.e. a group on the assumption that usually more than one person forms the subject, which in a PBL classroom is of course the group of students and anyone else involved in the learning process; and,

6) Division of labour, which captures how the tasks are divided among the community and whether there are any vertical divisions in terms of power and status. Again, in a PBL context, this may reflect how the students break up the task between them, as well as the roles of students and tutors respectively.

Activity theory as a concept is thus useful to understand and break down the various actions that take place within the overall rubric of an PBL (Chernobilsky et al., 2005a). For example, a number of researchers have remarked on how a multimedia environment has changed student behaviour (Savin-Baden et al., 2011; Spronken-Smith & Harland, 2009) as the environment ceases to be like a formal classroom and more like their use of ICT outside formal education. Others have gone so far as to argue that the degree of multimedia adopted can actually disrupt the deep learning process that is the basic goal of PBL (Basu Roy & McMahon, 2012). This indicates the value of looking at PBL in terms of the role and impact of multi-semiotic resources on how students learn and construct knowledge.

One practical exploration of these dynamics is offered by the eSTEP on line problem-based learning environment (Chernobilsky et al., 2005a). This consists of a hypertext-based knowledge resource, a library of videos showing classroom instruction and a module that allows the students to post their observations and findings and access a threaded discussion board. It was noted that the process of group formation and orientation to the task was as expected and that “the apprehension and uncertainty on each student’s mind as they started on their first problem was apparent” (Chernobilsky et al., 2005, p. 59). In particular the shift from a conventional face-to-face ‘warm up’ session to using an on-line environment caused major problems, represented in activity theory terms by an adoption of a new tool, and that “there was little demonstration of any online communication and participation. They tended not to question each other; rather each student posted their research and proposals without much interaction with other group members” (Chernobilsky et al., 2005, p. 59).

The new tool shifted the perceived rules away from a focus on collaborative learning towards a perception that the task was to engage individually with the multimedia resources. However, over time, the students came to a construction of both the new tool and the rules for the task that allowed them to return to a degree of in-group collaboration, although they continued to emphasise the need for personal mastery over the learning environment.

Donnelly (2008) has argued that the use of activity theory provides an invaluable theoretical framework within which an evaluation of a PBL session can be set,

activities, learning principles, and a learning theory” (p. 38), with activity theory providing the appropriate learning theory. The social constructivist model that is inherent to activity theory (Engeström, 1987; Leontev, 1978) and to PBL (Savin- Baden & Major, 2004) makes activity theory a useful framework within which to both interpret PBL activities and to guide the design of ICT-based PBL learning environments (Donnelly, 2008). In this respect, the tools concept in activity theory is “increasingly being applied to aspects of technology-supported learning because of its emphasis on the mediation of tools and social factors on human activity” (Donnelly, 2008, p. 43).

However, while activity theory offers a framework within which to understand this process, it is not predictive in that it does not specify what changes in knowledge construction will result from changes in the other possible variables (Engeström, 1987; Jewitt, 2006). In this sense, the concept of rules can be used to explore whether students perceive an on-line environment as changing the process of their interaction with each other, the relative role of students and tutors or has the effect of making them see multimedia and computer assisted PBL environments as being less clearly about formal education (Donnelly, 2008). Such an enquiry could be based on either observation or by questioning the students.

In a different sense, activity theory can be used to explore the collaborative learning process that is key to PBL (Arvaja et al., 2007), especially as “it is not possible to study thinking and cognition independently of the social, interpersonal, cultural, and historical settings” (Arvaja et al., 2007, p. 449). The consequence of this approach is that collaborative learning is a function of the group, a function of the knowledge already acquired and brought by individuals into the group and the rules the group operates with, but nevertheless personal understanding remains an activity of the individual learner. There is a real difference between the concept of interaction and that of collaboration (Arvaja et al., 2007), in particular as “one fundamental issue in these analyses is what kind of social interaction can be called collaborative and how the collaborative opportunities and individual abilities are matched” (Arvaja et al., 2007, p. 458).