A meta-analysis study of the effect of Problem-Based Learning model on students’ mathematical problem solving skills

Abstract

This study aims at analysing the effectiveness of Problem-Based Learning (PBL) on students’ mathematical problem-solving skills. The Effect Size in some research which applied PBL was examined using the meta-analysis technique. Empirical data were obtained using electronic search engines, including Google Scholar, Portal Garuda, ERIC, SPRINGER, and national journals URL; coding was used as the instrument. Data analysis was conducted using the meta-analysis software, namely Comprehensive V.03. The method included systematic reviews on research findings in Indonesia’s national e-journals, with 16 articles meeting the inclusion criteria selected as the sample. The publication bias test was carried out so that 13 articles were obtained which would be analysed further. The meta-analysis study reveals that the overall effect of implementing PBL on students’ mathematical problem-solving skills had a high category of effect. Moreover, the effect size of the application of the PBL model on solving ability between study groups was not different based on the characteristics of the level of education, class, sample size, and study year. The results of other studies, it was found that there was a significant difference in the effect size between study groups based on the duration of learning.