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Do student-defined learning issues increase quality and quantity of individual study?
Peter P J L Verkoeijen1, Remy M J P Rikers, Wilco W R te Winkel
1Department of Psychology, Higher Education Research Center, Erasmus University Rotterdam, PO Box 1738, NL-3000 DR, Rotterdam, The Netherlands. verkoeijen@fsw.eur.nl
Abstract:
An experiment was conducted in the context of a problem-based learning course to investigate the influence of a learning-goal-free problem scenario on the quality and quantity of individual study. In half of the tutorial groups, the problem scenario was constructed in such a way that it provided useful learning issues (goal-specified condition), whereas in the other half of the tutorial groups, the problem scenario did not provide learning issues (goal-free condition). It was demonstrated that students in the goal-free condition read more articles, studied longer, and spent more time reporting the studied literature than their peers in the goal-specified condition. These findings suggest that the use of goal-free problems has a positive effect on the students' individual study and the extensiveness of the tutorial group meeting.
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