EVALUATION OF STUDENTS’ GENERAL PERCEPTIONS OF PROBLEM-BASED LEARNING IN A COMPUTER ENGINEERING PROGRAM IN BRAZIL
Journal Title: Problems of Education in the 21st Century - Year 2015, Vol 68, Issue 12
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 frst 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 signifcant 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 satisfed with PBL and like it, what indicates a successful use of it in the mentioned program.
Authors and Affiliations
David Moises Barreto dos Santos, Carlos Alberto dos Santos da Silva
Keywords
Related Articles
- EP ID EP35415
- DOI -
- Views 358
- Downloads 0
INTERDISCIPLINARY SCIENCE: A WAY TO BROADEN AND DEEPEN KNOWLEDGE IN RESEARCH AND EDUCATION
How do we look at interdisciplinary theories and methods today and how do we welcome an interdisciplinary perspective in research? These questions are perhaps not the discussed in various research disciplines but the que...
LECTURERS’ MANAGERIAL COMPETENCIES IMPORTANT FOR STUDENTS AT THE CZECH UNIVERSITY OF LIFE SCIENCES
This research identifes the lecturers’ competencies which are the most important from the students’ perspective at the Czech University of Life Sciences Prague and compares students’ opinion and their change over the w...
FOLLOWING EARLY CAREER CHEMISTRY TEACHERS: THE DEVELOPMENT OF PEDAGOGICAL CONTENT KNOWLEDGE FROM PRE-SERVICE TO A PROFESSIONAL TEACHER
In this study the aim was to investigate the development of Pedagogical Content Knowledge (PCK) of early career chemistry teachers. Two pre-service chemistry teachers were followed during a one-semester course and afte...
CO-REGULATION PROCESSES WITHIN INTERACTIVE DYNAMICS: INSIGHTS FROM SECOND GRADERS’ COOPERATIVE WRITING
This research aims at analyzing the features of interactive dynamics in second graders’ peer interactions (age 7-8) during cooperative writing in classroom settings. Focused on in-depth qualitative analyses of videotap...
PROBLEMS OF DEVELOPMENT OF MASTER DEGREE PROGRAM IN ACCOUNTING AT THE UNIVERSITY OF LATVIA
The article is dedicated to problems and possibilities of development in terms of realization of Academic and Professional Master’s Degree program in Accounting at the University of Latvia. Carrying out continuous compar...