Critiques and Challenges of PBL

This section introduces critiques of PBL as a learning strategy. These encompass the flaws of PBL itself, and several practical challenges of delivering the PBL model in classes which might affect the effectiveness of students’ learning when using PBL.

PBL approach has been critiqued as well as commended. One critique is that the standardised testing of facts does not fit well with the “core values” of PBL in which self-assessment is a central element. It is difficult to assess problem-solving skills, interaction or group work (Pagander & Read, 2014). As discussed before in section (3.3.1), regarding educational achievement, Vernon and Blake (1993) stated that standardized exams are preferred by students learning from conventional methods, and these exams are considered to be better at covering subject content (Albanese & Mitchell, 1993). However, the educational purpose of PBL is to develop skills such as independent thinking and self-confidence and not focus only on curriculum topics .Therefore, alternative assessment methods need to be implemented to measure students’ achievements such as essay writing, self-evaluation, peer evaluation, oral examination and report writing which can assess the content retention and skills. Though leaners’ knowledge in PBL focuses on specific knowledge related to the problem, it also improves long-term retention of knowledge (Farnsworth, 1994).In regard to context of this study; the MoE in KB applies standardised testing which focuses on the content to assess students’ academic achievements and does not aim to assess the students’ skills such as confidence. This standardised testing is not compatible with assessing PBL skills.

Insufficient evidence has been provided to prove that PBL is an effective teaching and learning method, arguably it is only useful in a limited range of educational settings. Pagander and Read (2014) claim that research has revealed that stronger students with more developed study skills can thrive in a PBL situation; weaker students whose planning abilities are less evolved find the

74 teamwork aspect too difficult and tend to become discouraged. An opposing view was taken by Samsonov et al. (2006), namely that the ability of participants and their prior achievements were not relevant when a group was given a PBL task, and that on the contrary, so-called weaker students sometimes showed more effective problem solving skills than their stronger counterparts. Their research also supported one of the core concepts of PBL thinking – positive interaction with others in a team leads to an improvement in students’ academic performance and skills – in that it discovered a clear link between supportive teamwork and a successful outcome.

PBL cannot always offer a complete solution to students’ individual learning needs. Forrester (2004) used two cases in a Hong Kong school in his critique of PBL learning outcomes. In the first case, when a class teacher presented PBL in a practical application, it became apparent this may benefit learners who flourish during cooperative and cognitive learning. On the other hand, the second case showed that when a class teacher used PBL to solve a problem by employing cooperative learning strategies, the emphasis on cooperative learning activities could have a negative effect on learners who flourish when learning individually. Forrester (2004) reported that in both cases, the outcomes indicated that the choice of teaching style was successful for the majority, but disadvantaged a minority of students. PBL is intrinsically sound in its aims, but is not suited to all students (ibid). Moreover, a study conducted at Bahrain Teacher College (BTC) to by Abdul Razzak (2012), to examine PBL in an educational Psychology classroom, revealed that an issue with a particular student not being engaged in activities could be attributed to his motivational difficulties due to his disinterest in any type of learning.

More debates about PBL are addressed by Pagander and Read (2014), who argued that PBL as it is presently designed is not suitable for sequential learning courses, such as engineering, and needs to be adapted to meet the needs of each specific subject. Some subjects might depend more on rote or content learning of knowledge rather than problem-solving skills based on the nature of the subject, such as teaching Quran hermeneutics, therefore some curricula could combine PBL with other methods. Provan (2011) advocates some simple changes that could be implemented to improve PBL, he proposes that students should be made aware of all the details of the curriculum so they do not have to speculate or research irrelevant material. This could be done in lectures and workshops.

75 A further critique by Provan (2011), in his article “A critique of problem-based learning at the University of British Columbia” reported concerns about unsatisfactory PBL, which was used in a course where an inexperienced tutor impacted negatively upon a group of students. The students had not received lectures on the week’s topic, and as a result they had insufficient information on the subject area studied to test the hypotheses; their tutor seemed not to know whether the hypothesis put forward was accurate, so students were liable to be misled and reach inaccurate conclusions which could have become entrenched. So tutor preparedness and understanding of PBL are essential for success. This is in line with Mandin et al.'s (1995) study which showed that when students lost their track, they might totally miss the vital content if they were not adequately guided by their teachers. In addition, training tutors in PBL is vital. Neville (1999, cited in Pagander & Read, 2014) emphasizes the importance of competent tutors being given a revised and effective role so that they can facilitate learning. The learning goals planned for PBL will not succeed without a strong tutor to lead the students, and efforts should be made to tailor the curriculum more to PBL. An effective facilitator impacts positively on students’ learning, this was confirmed in my primary data which used two teachers who already had experience in teaching IE, and trained them for their new roles as facilitators. I met with them for four single-hour sessions to explain the PBL module and how it was to be applied, focusing on the new requirements of the role itself.

Formulating the problem is also critical to ensure that essential information in the curriculum is covered. Formulating the problem in PBL should address the aims and objectives of the subject matter that the students need to understand. Dolmans et al.’s (1992) study at the Medical School of the University of Limburg, The Netherlands, revealed students’ achievement in specific problem objectives; they found that many objectives were absent as students became diverted from their studies. However, a study was conducted at the Medical School of Arabian Gulf University in Bahrain by Al-Shaibani et al., (2003) which claimed that when a PBL strategy was employed for curriculum planning and implementation, the faculty-set learning aims and objectives were successfully achieved with the students identifying the objectives and learning issues of the problems. This is in line with the primary data of the study at hand, which revealed positive outcomes in terms of the students identifying the learning issues related to the problem.

76 On the other hand, changing the students’ and teacher’s roles through implementing PBL creates a number of challenges during delivery, particularly where students and teachers are familiar and comfortable with more conventional teaching methods. According to Smith et al. (1995), there is a risk that PBL will have an adverse effect on learning outcomes when it is first implemented; According to Anthony and Abdul Kadir (2012b), though students in their study were uneasy about participating in the course initially on account of the PBL approach, as the group progressed, the majority of students adapted to the new learning mode and attended the class (ibid). Li (2012) gives examples in his case study of problems which occurred during the opening stages of PBL courses; typical problems encountered included off-topic discussions in groups, student conflict and general disobedience.

Anthony and Abdul Kadir (2012b) address the implementation problems and highlight the necessity of introducing students to the PBL system in advance. Participants in Anthony and Abdul Kadir’s study underwent two weeks of training to familiarise themselves with their new roles as interactive collaborative learners. This was an effective approach to implementation as students were not shocked by new teaching methods but instead were offered advanced training so that they could fully benefit from the collaborative learning experience (Anthony & Abdul Kadir, 2012a).

Studies by Smith et al. (1995) and Imafuku et al. (2014) discovered that teachers also struggled to adapt to the new system as it contravened much of what they had learnt throughout their teaching careers. In addition, many teachers were unhappy about having to engage in skills training and the effort required a teacher to be competent facilitators. Many teachers also felt uneasy as they no longer taught the students in a conventional sense, as they were focused more on prompting the students to learn from one another. This sense of unease was also related to the teachers’ perceived loss of authority over their students. Nonetheless, despite these reservations, the teachers were quite satisfied with the PBL approach, despite the increased workload, and had no desire to revert back to more traditional modes of instruction (Imafuku et al., 2014). In fact, though the teachers admitted that a significant amount of preparatory work was required to ensure that the system was effective, it was nonetheless a valuable and enjoyable experience for their students (ibid).

77 Li (2012) highlighted one instance where a teacher expressed dissatisfaction with PBL; she was finding it difficult to implement PBL protocol as she had such a strong desire to teach. In fact, her traditional tendencies often took over during her classes, albeit unintentionally. For example, during a class that was supposed to focus on group discussion, the teacher merely summarised the progress made so far. Nonetheless, towards the later stages of the course, the teacher had improved her teaching methods and developed ways to ensure that she adhered to the principles of PBL. In addition, she stopped simply offering solutions to students and encouraged them to find answers by communicating and collaborating with their peers. In this way, she began to adopt the role of facilitator. So a conclusion to be drawn from these two papers is that teachers can sometimes find the transition difficult.

Another challenge raised by several other studies, was that PBL requires too much time to achieve maximum effectiveness (Smith et al. 1995 and Closson, 2011). Nonetheless, Owens et al. (2010) discussed how their group saved time by having the whole teaching team contribute towards the case composition of professional development programmes. Furthermore, on account of having group members from different professions, a diverse range of problems were quickly resolved and the resulting case questions were more comprehensive and understandable as they had been evaluated by a diverse range of healthcare professionals (ibid).So, collaborative learning is good for planning.

To sum up, Pagander and Read (2014) concluded that PBL is a method of teaching and learning, alongside many others, which can benefit some students and can enhance the study of certain subjects. They have also concluded that insufficient research has been done, given the ethical limitations, to make an absolute judgment on PBL or to state categorically that it increases knowledge retention. In this regard, my research aims is to explore the ‘reality’ of PBL’s potential in a new context “IE in KB” which would play a key role in KB education reforms and add to the body of research evaluating the effectiveness of PBL.

3.4 The Theoretical framework of problem-based learning and Islamic Education