Problem-based learning : a catalyst for enabling and disabling disjunction prompting transitions in learner stances

摘要

This study demonstrates that while problem-based learning (PBL) may promote manyudof the abilities currently high on the agenda in British higher education in the 1990s, theudwider implications of the implementation of PBL are more complex and far reaching.udThis multi site study was qualitative and post-positivist in its design and process. Theudfocus was to: examine the expectations and experiences of staff and students inuddifferent professional and educational environments who are involved in using PBL inudsome way. What emerged was a new model for understanding the nature of learnerudexperience on PBL programmes, charactensed by significant diversity betweenudespoused aims and values, what happened in practice and in relationships between staffudand students.udDisjunction is a concept seen by many as a starting point for learning. (Jarvis, 1987;udWeil, 1989). Students are often offered through PBL the opportunity to own theirudlearning experiences and develop independence in inquiry. It is these veryudopportunities which seemed to prompt different forms of disjunction. This researchudextends earlier work around the concept of disjunction in learning, and the notion ofudenabling and disabling forms in relation to three different understandings of "learnerudstance". These three stances present a multifaceted view of learner experience. Theudemergent model suggests ways in which students are prompted to reflect upon andudreconstruct their learner identity. This in turn may result in transitions within theirudpersonal, pedagogical and interactional stances as learners within particularudenvironments.udThe study concludes by suggesting that the notion of learner stances and transitionsudwhich occur in relation to them, offer a framework for broadening currentudunderstandings of learner experience on diverse PBL programmes, whilst arguing thatudPBL may prompt new forms of transformation in relation to students' past, present andudfuture constructions of learning and of themselves as learners.