EVALUATION OF STUDENTS’ GENERAL PERCEPTIONS OF PROBLEM-BASED LEARNING IN A COMPUTER ENGINEERING PROGRAM IN BRAZIL

Abstract

This research aimed to evaluate students’ overall perceptions of Problem-based Learning use in a Computer Engineering program in Brazil. PBL is applied to nine interdisciplinary core courses of its curriculum. A 32-item questionnaire was administered to 115 students, with an average age of 20.9 (SD 2.7) between late 2014 and the beginning of 2015. It includes items on PBL general aspects, improved skills, PBL room and overall satisfaction. The results show that students’ degree of agreement with several items ranged from 4.1 to 5.9, in a seven-point scale. Some of these items revealed that 68.7% of the students got familiarized with PBL along the first year and there is a growing tendency among students to improve this familiarity with PBL over time. Moreover, the two items with lowest degree of disagreement were tutors’ feedback at the end of each tutorial session (35.7%) and the deadline to elaborate these solutions of problems (29.6%). Almost all students also agree with that PBL helps them to improve several skills, mainly problem-solving, self-directed learning and critical thinking. Repeating students in PBL courses scored higher than the non-repeating students. Many of them were statistically significant differences, inclusive for items on familiarization process. This can mean that their failures are not related to the familiarity with the method likely. Finally, most of the students are satisfied with PBL and like it, what indicates a successful use of it in the mentioned program. Key words: problem-based learning, evaluation, students’ perception, computer engineering.