Experimental evidence of the relative effectiveness of problem-based learning for knowledge acquisition and retention

Abstract

This study investigated the effects of problem-based learning (PBL) on knowledge acquisition and knowledge retention in a controlled experiment in a lab setting. Eighty-eight first-year psychology students were randomly assigned to either a PBL condition, a lecture condition, or a self-study condition. All participants had the opportunity to study the same text. Their knowledge acquisition was tested on both an immediate post-test and a delayed post-test, one week later. The results showed beneficial effects for the PBL group on the immediate and the delayed test compared to the lecture group. There were no differences between knowledge acquisition scores for the self-study condition and either of the other conditions. Moreover, no differences on knowledge retention were shown, because the decline in performance over time was equal in all conditions. In conclusion, the present study provides experimentally based evidence of the disadvantageous effects of instruction through lectures compared to PBL.

Keywords:

• effectiveness
• knowledge acquisition
• knowledge retention
• lecture
• problem-based learning
• self-study

Acknowledgements

We are grateful to the employees of the Erasmus Behavioral Lab for their assistance and support. We would like to thank Emily Fox for proofreading an earlier version of this article.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes on contributors

Marit Wijnen was born on 21 October 1990 in Vlaardingen, the Netherlands. She obtained her MA degree in Educational Psychology at Erasmus University Rotterdam in the Netherlands. She is now employed as a Ph.D. student at the Department of Law at the Erasmus University of Rotterdam. Her Ph.D. project started in 2013 and the focus of the research is on the effectiveness of PBL at the Department of Law at the Erasmus University Rotterdam.

Sofie M. M. Loyens was born on 20 May 1978 in Bilzen, Belgium. She obtained her MA degree in Cognitive Psychology at Maastricht University in the Netherlands. After graduation, she started her Ph.D. project at the Department of Psychology of Erasmus University Rotterdam, obtaining her Ph.D. degree in 2007. She then was a visiting scholar at the University of Maryland (US) on a grant from the Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research (NWO). She is now employed as an Associate Professor of Educational Psychology at the Department of Psychology of Erasmus University Rotterdam. Her main research theme is PBL, investigating its effectiveness and empirical evidence for PBL’s goals. Other research themes are students’ conceptions of learning and conceptual change (i.e. resolving misconceptions in education), and students’ learning processes including motivation and self-regulated learning. She received a grant from the Dutch Ministry of Education for investigating predictors of students’ study success in the Bachelor phase in 2009. Her work has been published in high-quality journals and she reviews for highly ranked journals (e.g. Science). She guest-edited several special issues and is an editorial board member of Contemporary Educational Psychology, Educational Research Review, and the Interdisciplinary Journal of Problem-Based Learning.

Lydia Schaap was born on 14 October 1980 in Leersum, the Netherlands. She obtained her MA degree in Cognitive Psychology at Maastricht University in the Netherlands. After graduation, she started her Ph.D. project at the Department of Psychology of Erasmus University Rotterdam, obtaining her Ph.D. degree in 2013. She is now employed as an Assistant Professor of Educational Psychology at the Department of Psychology of Erasmus University Rotterdam. Her main research theme is the testing effect, investigating its explanations and possibilities for educational application. Other research themes are PBL, learning from worked examples, and self-regulated learning. Her work has been published in peer-reviewed international journals and she reviews for different international journals as well (e.g. Assessment & Evaluation in Higher Education and Studies in Higher Education).