Abstract
Within Problem-Based Learning successful learning depends on the quality of cognitive, social and motivational contributions students make to the tutorial group. But at the same time, not all students in PBL automatically contribute in a high quality manner, which might impede successful group functioning. This study investigated whether peer process feedback combined with goal setting can be used to improve the quality of students’ individual contributions. A mixed-methods explanatory design, in which 74 second-year Health Sciences students participated, combined a pre- and posttest with a focus group. The results indicated that the quality of the contributions only increased for students with a below average score on the pre-test. The qualitative data confirmed that the impact of the feedback could be increased by combining individual reflection by means of goal setting with face-to-face discussion. Another suggestion is to investigate whether midterm peer process feedback is more effective for first year students, because they are still developing their tutorial behavior, as opposed to second year students.
Highlights
Within health sciences Problem-Based Learning (PBL) is a commonly used instructional approach
Within Problem-Based Learning successful learning depends on the quality of cognitive, social and motivational contributions students make to the tutorial group
The purpose of this study was to investigate whether or not peer process feedback combined with goal setting could improve the quality of students’ individual contributions within the tutorial group
Summary
Within health sciences Problem-Based Learning (PBL) is a commonly used instructional approach. For instance, within collaborative groups is that students tend to shirk their responsibility to other group members and rely on them to do the work (Decuyper et al 2010) This socalled ‘‘free riding’’ has been seen in PBL tutorial groups and students have indicated that they believe this has a negative effect on group functioning (Dolmans et al 1998). Students tend to merely state the undifferentiated main issues that resulted from their self-study, without explicitly discussing differences in viewpoints between students or sources This is called ‘‘group thinking’’ and is known to have a negative effect on group functioning (Decuyper et al 2010). It would be interesting to investigate whether and how formative peer feedback in a PBL tutorial group setting can improve a student’s contributions in the tutorial group
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