This study provides a quantitative approach to analyzing college students' levels of self-actualization. Specifically, it addresses the distinction between students from non-rural and rural hometowns relative to their level of self-actualization. Students from five public state schools, in one Midwestern state, were surveyed. Self-actualization…

Discusses the principles of problem-based learning and their application to graduate-level counselor education. Claims that programs can be conceptualized around three phases: (1) essential theory and skills acquisition; (2) problem-based learning using critical thinking and reasoning skills; and (3) internship and application. This approach helps…

An assistant professor approaches students' unconventional research topics (like crystal healing) as ordinary research endeavors, asking students if they want their work to be credible, what academic discipline they plan to use, what research question should be asked, and what resources are necessary to understand the topic. (MLH)

A study investigated the attitudes of 35 graduate nursing students toward the self-directed learning incorporated into a problem-based curriculum at an Australian university. Results show substantial and highly significant increases in student perceptions of themselves as self-directed learners and in perceptions of the value of self-directed…

A study of 71 Michigan State University medical school students in their first semester of a problem-based curriculum found that students' initial dependence on tutors progressed to an emphasis on learning resources. This result was congruent with the theoretical model of the dynamics of problem-based learning. (Author/MSE)

A study investigated medical school faculty and student knowledge and perceptions of group dynamics in the context of problem-based learning (PBL). Observation of 27 first-year medical students and 3 faculty in University of Toronto medical school PBL groups revealed a generally low awareness of effective group dynamics. Comprehensive medical…

Different ways student-generated learning issues are used to deal with disciplinary content were assessed at seven North American medical schools with problem-based curricula. Structured interviews with key faculty representing the schools being studied suggested that the seven programs are encouraging the development of self-directed learning…

Education in Hong Kong has been developed along a British model that uses examination results to determine students' academic futures: to be allowed to go on to a university to study or to go into the workplace with a tenth-grade education. The system has been described by likening students to Peking ducks who are forced to eat, fattened up for…

This study compared the learning attitudes of 131 undergraduate medical students enrolled in sections of a course that used a problem-based learning (PBL) approach with 120 students enrolled in sections using conventional teaching methods. Student surveys indicated that the PBL course experience was perceived as a personally more meaningful…

Our department has redesigned its electrical engineering and computer engineering programs completely by adopting a learning methodology based on competence development, problem solving, and the realization of design projects. In this article, we show how this pedagogical approach has been successfully used for learning compiler design.

A 2-year study at the University of Sherbrooke (Quebec) investigated the changes in six medical students' clinical reasoning processes as they participated in a problem-based learning (PBL) curriculum. In each year, students performed a think-aloud protocol with two medical case problems to solve, one in cardiology and one in urology. In the…

This chapter argues that liberal learning can be transformative and foster students' intellectual and ethical development only if we consider its development underpinnings and pedagogic strategies that illustrate that the skills of academic inquiry are the skills of personal development. (Contains 1 note.)