Research on the Effectiveness of Problem Based Learning
This segment requires that we get into the nitty-gritty of research and how research can influence practice. This focus may or may not be appropriate to the focus of the class in which you are using these resources, but even if this segment is seldom assigned and read, we feel it is important we take seriously the topic we describe here. Educational practices should not come to be used simply because the ideas sound good. The concept of evidence based practice makes a lot of sense and we make every effort to try to follow the research that is relevant to the areas in which we write.
Having taken the stance we have just advocated, we can also clearly state that prominent scholars frequently disagree on whether educational practices have established credibility. This is partly because studies often generate conflicting results and those applied studies that meet the standard of “good science” are far more infrequent than you might expect. However, complexity and contradiction are not reasons to abandon the goal that educational practice be evidence based. We would not want something as important as educational practice to just drift along moving in one direction and then another based on political whims or popular trends.
Some researchers ( e.g., Mayer, 2004; Kirschner, Sweller & Clark, 2006) conclude from their careful review of the research that instructional practices such as problem-based learning and project-based learning are ineffective when compared with traditional direct instruction. In addition, they conclude that many of the studies demonstrating positive effects for project-based approaches are methodologically flawed. This means the positive results observed were due to factors other than the benefits of the instructional strategy such as additional time for the students in the “treatment” group or outcome measures tailored to be uniquely sensitive to the treatment group. Now, these are prominent researchers and their analysis is certainly to be respected, but there are, in fact, studies conducted paying careful attention to the details of sound research methodology that have demonstrated the benefits of problem-based learning. We offer here a summary of a positive perspective on problem-based learning from several researchers who have evaluated the procedure in a sound way and have operationalized a research approach we think we can summarize.