As the demand for business intelligence (BI) professionals continues to grow, educators need to calibrate their instruction to accommodate the demand of practitioners for specific technical skills while also providing college students with a broader foundation that includes a general understanding of BI concepts and problem-solving skills that are…

The purpose of this study was to validate a problem-based learning (PBL) approach in teaching legal aspects of recreational sport to college students, and to examine students' abilities to acquire well-structured knowledge and knowledge use flexibility as learning outcomes of the PBL process. Student satisfaction in learning about the law related…

In this changing world, college graduates require new skills to be successful in jobs that may not yet exist. The authors describe an innovative instructional approach to teaching organizational behavior grounded in Kolb's model of experiential learning and problem-based learning. Specifically, the sample class is scaffolded across the semester by…

Scholarship examining the educational potential of semester-long research projects in non-methods undergraduate sociology courses is limited. To address this gap in knowledge, I drew from active learning and problem-based learning literatures to develop a term research project in two sections of an undergraduate sociology course at a large public…

This study reports the results of a meta-analysis synthesizing the available literature on the effectiveness of various forms of small-group learning methods on the academic achievement of college students in undergraduate engineering and technology classrooms. The meta-analytic results showed that cooperative learning, collaborative learning,…

This study investigated the effects of problem-based learning (PBL) on knowledge acquisition and knowledge retention in a controlled experiment in a lab setting. Eighty-eight first-year psychology students were randomly assigned to either a PBL condition, a lecture condition, or a self-study condition. All participants had the opportunity to study…

The use of wind energy is now an established fact, and many educational institutions are introducing this topic into their engineering studies. Problem-based learning (PBL), as a student-centered instructional approach, has contributed to important developments in engineering education over the last few years. This paper presents the experience of…

Introduction: Here we report the results obtained in an innovative teaching experience that encourages the development of Critical Thinking skills through motivational intervention. Understanding Critical Thinking as a theory of action, "we think to solve problems", and accompanying this concept with a program aimed at teaching/learning…

Problem based learning (PBL) is often introduced in curricula in form of short segments. In the literature the value of these PBL-islands is doubted. In order to gain more insight in this curricular approach, we compared student generated learning issues, from a 7-week PBL-island introduced in a traditional curriculum (PBL-I), with the gold…

Inter-group peer evaluation through wikis was implemented as a method for senior capstone design teams to improve writing and the critical evaluation of data. Each group was evaluated by peers using a qualitative discussion and evaluated quantitatively by instructors. Students had an increased interest in contributing to online knowledge centers,…

Background: Changes in lab style can lead to differences in learning. Two inquiry-oriented lab styles are guided inquiry (GI) and problem-based (PB). Students' attitudes towards lab are important to consider when choosing between GI and PB styles during curriculum design. Purpose: We examined the degree to which lab experiences are explained by a…

In recent years, researchers have conducted various studies on applying wireless networking technology and mobile devices in education settings. However, research on behavioral patterns in learners' online asynchronous discussions with mobile devices is limited. The purposes of this study are to develop a mobile learning system, mobile interactive…

A lot of studies have investigated the isolated use of threaded discussion and wiki technologies to facilitate collaboration in online learning settings. Nevertheless, the integration of both technologies into a potentially superior collaborative learning tool has not been explicitly investigated. This manuscript reports on an effort to undertake…

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to describe and discuss the use of specifically-developed, inquiry-based learning materials for Computing and Forensic Computing students. Small applications have been developed which require investigation in order to de-bug code, analyse data issues and discover "illegal" behaviour. The applications…

The "Global Village Playground" ("GVP") was a capstone learning experience designed to address institutional assessment needs while providing an integrated and authentic learning experience for students aimed at fostering critical and creative thinking. In the "GVP", students work on simulated and real-world problems as a design team tasked with…