Examining self-managed problem-based learning interactions in engineering education

ABSTRACT

With the increasing complexity of the engineering role, today’s graduates must be capable of confronting both technical and societal problems; underpinned by effective teamwork at their core. Problem-based learning has been implemented in engineering to better prepare students for modern industry. However, limited research has examined the complex social processes involved in PBL. The present study, therefore, reports on how students working in tutorless PBL groups – owing to teaching limitations – must effectively self-manage their team efforts if they are to succeed. This PBL arrangement involved a ‘floating facilitator’ but the analysis focuses exclusively on the students’ tutorless interactions. The data collected is from 22 chemical engineering undergraduates in four groups, and consists of naturalistic video-recordings of 32 PBL meetings (35 h). This corpus was examined empirically using conversation analysis to elucidate students’ recurrent communicational practices. The microanalyses showed how students continuously established PBL as the collective responsibility of the group. Furthermore, students maintained ‘average’, equal social identities, and used humour/self-deprecation in constructing an informal learning environment. In the absence of the tutor who would normally maintain cohesion, these strategies offer a means through which students adapt to the unfamiliarity of the tutorless setting, where no member is positioned as the substitute tutor.

KEYWORDS:

• Problem-based learning
• teamwork
• interaction
• conversation analysis
• tutorless groups

Acknowledgements

The authors gratefully acknowledge the Social Psychology Research Group at Linköping University for their invitation to present this work at their 2017 seminar series, as well as the Samtals-och-interaktionsanalys (SIS) Group for arranging an engaging data session involving our analytical findings. The authors also appreciate the students who so kindly volunteered to participate in the study.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes on contributors

Robert McQuade, PhD Researcher, University of Strathclyde. Robert is a member of Dr Ventura-Medina’s SkIL Lab, and Representative for the European Society for Psychology Learning and Teaching (ESPLAT). In the aim of informing future pedagogical design, Robert’s research uses conversation analysis to examine the naturalistic – that is, the actual – interactions of student groups engaging in problem-based learning. Specifically, through the fine-grained exploration of a large corpus of video-recorded data, his work centres on the self-management strategies exhibited by engineering students in navigating ‘tutorless’ – owing to teaching resource limitations – problem-based learning. By focusing on students’ ‘real-life’ social processes, it is possible to determine what does – and does not – interactionally work within a predominantly student-driven learning environment; an increasingly common occurrence in higher education.

Esther Ventura-Medina, Senior Lecturer, University of Strathclyde. Esther has extensive expertise in the use of enquiry/problem/project-based learning within her own teaching. Esther also leads the SkIL Group, whose research considers problem-solving, critical thinking and teamwork as key professional skills, and addresses questions about their development through the use of student-centred and authentic pedagogies. SkIL work in collaboration with other engineering, science and psychology departments on an international level. Similarly, Esther has wide experience in the use of platforms and Web 2.0 technologies in teaching and learning, winning the prestigious Teacher of the Year Award at the University of Manchester in 2011 for her contributions to the development of an eLearning portfolio in Chemical Engineering.

Sally Wiggins, Reader, Linköping University. Sally is part of the Social Psychology Research Group at Linköping University, and works closely with researchers within linguistics and interactional studies. Her research specialism is discursive psychology, within which she has published work on everyday interaction during family mealtimes, weight-management groups within healthcare, problem-based learning tutorial groups, and online discussion forums. She has been working within problem-based learning for many years as a tutor, a tutor-trainer, and as a researcher. She is also the founding President of the European Society for Psychology Learning and Teaching (ESPLAT), which seeks to support and develop pedagogical research within psychology across all levels.

Anthony Anderson, Academic Vice Dean, University of Strathclyde. Tony’s research interests are in three main areas: (a) language understanding in dialogue, (b) aspects of student learning, particularly academic and metacognitive skill learning, such as critical thinking skills, and (c) human factors. The interaction among these interests has led to involvement in a number of externally-funded projects over the years examining such phenomena as the effect on dialogue of remote video-mediated communication, and using dialogue-based learning and teaching interventions to enhance critical thinking skills.

ORCID

Robert McQuade http://orcid.org/0000-0002-5777-1418

Esther Ventura-Medina http://orcid.org/0000-0002-1041-945X

Sally Wiggins http://orcid.org/0000-0002-3307-0748

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council Award [grant number 1827113].