Understanding the prospect of success in professional training: an ethnography into the assessment of problem-based learning

ABSTRACT

One of the most fundamental innovations in higher education is the introduction of the method known as problem-based learning (PBL). While literature has largely focused on its learning goals and the transition from lectures to tutorials, little research has problematised why this is a successful methodology and what we consider as students’ success. Drawing upon various ethnographic techniques, the authors analyse PBL as a field of expectations in light of Expectation-Value Theory. Beyond merely showing that PBL is a culturally constructed practice, the article elaborates on how students’ expectations inform practices, performance and evaluation, which is important for assessing the successfulness of the method. By discussing students’ expectations, dynamics and power relations, the present article is a contribution to the research addressing what has come to be known as the ‘black box’ of PBL.

KEYWORDS:

• Higher education
• adult learning
• problem-based learning
• ethnography
• group dynamics
• expectancy theory

Acknowledgements

The authors greatly thank the students who participated in this research as informants and two anonymous reviewers for their thoughtful comments on an earlier version of this article.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

ORCID

Ricardo A. Ayala http://orcid.org/0000-0001-7840-1072