Examining the Application of a Similar Problem-Based Learning Procedure in Teacher Education and Engineering Education Programs

Abstract

This multiple case study aims to describe how Turkish students in English Language Teaching (ELT) and Electrical-Electronics Engineering Program (EEP) conceive of Problem-based Learning (PBL), and how they experience their studies within a PBL-oriented curriculum. With the inclusion of these two cases into the study, the rationale is to represent two different educational perspectives and to obtain in-depth, extensive, and comparable data. The participants from the ELT and EEP were first-year students who pursued courses in English, which is taught as a foreign language in Turkiye. During one semester, the data were collected through open-ended questionnaires and reflection reports, both of which were analyzed qualitatively with an interpretative phenomenological approach. The results revealed commonalities as well as differences in how students in these two comparable programs perceived and experienced PBL. Commonalities were many in number and involved positive perceptions along with beneficial experiences of PBL. Yet, differences only stemmed from the number of frequencies of some similar issues raised by both groups of students. The most eye-catching difference was that the EEP students emphasized the anticipated benefits of PBL less frequently than the ELT students did. However, at the end of the process, the EEP students proposed benefits gained from PBL more frequently.