Learners' Perceptions of Design Factors Found in Problem-Based Learning (PBL) That Support Reflective Thinking.

Reflection involves active, persistent, and careful consideration of any belief or practice. It promotes understanding of underlying beliefs and application of new knowledge to new situations. Problem-Based Learning (PBL) provides the instructional mechanisms for prompting learner reflective thinking. Research questions for this study were: (1) What are the factors that students perceive as prompting reflective thinking? (2) Which factor is perceived as the most important for prompting learners' reflective thinking? (3) Is there a significant difference between the derived factors? and (4) Which elements or characteristics prompt reflective thinking within the derived factors? Participants were 144 students in grades six through eight who attended three different middle schools in rural Pennsylvania. This study found that young students perceived three factors as most important in supporting their reflection in PBL lessons: learning environment, teacher, and scaffolding tools. Reflective activities are described and implications for designing PBL are discussed. (Contains 20 references.) (Author/AEF) Reproductions supplied by EDRS are the best that can be made from the original document. Learners' Perceptions of Design Factors Found in Problem-Based Learning (PBL) that Support Reflective Thinking PERMISSION TO REPRODUCE AND DISSEMINATE THIS MATERIAL HAS BEEN GRANTED BY f) r U.S. DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION Office of Educational Research and Improvement EDUCATIONAL RESOURCES INFORMATION CENTER (ERIC) 9 This document has been reproduced as received from the person or organization originating it. Minor changes have been made to improve reproduction quality. TO THE EDUCATIONAL RESOURCES INFORMATION CENTER (ERIC) Points of view or opinions stated in this document do not necessarily represent official OERI position or policy. By: Tiffany A. Koszalka, Hae-Deok Song & Barbara L. Grabowski BEST COPY AV 'LUKE 0 Learners' Perceptions of Design Factors Found in Problem-Based Learning (PBL) that Support Reflective Thinking Tiffany A. Koszalka. Syracuse University Hae-Deok Song Barbara L. Grabowski Penn State University Abstract Reflection involves active, persistent, and careful consideration of any belief or practice. It promotes understanding of underlying beliefs and application of new knowledge to new situations. Problem-Based Learning ,(PBL) provides the instructional mechanisms for prompting learner reflective thinking. This study found that young students perceived three factors as most important in supporting their reflection in PBL lessons: learning environment, teacher, and scaffolding tools. Reflective activities are described and implications for designing PBL discussed.Reflection involves active, persistent, and careful consideration of any belief or practice. It promotes understanding of underlying beliefs and application of new knowledge to new situations. Problem-Based Learning ,(PBL) provides the instructional mechanisms for prompting learner reflective thinking. This study found that young students perceived three factors as most important in supporting their reflection in PBL lessons: learning environment, teacher, and scaffolding tools. Reflective activities are described and implications for designing PBL discussed. Introduction Modem society is becoming more complex, information is becoming available and changing more rapidly prompting users to constantly re-think, switch directions, and change problem-solving strategies. Thus, it is increasingly important to help young students develop keen reflective thinking capabilities during learning that help them construct strategies for applying new knowledge to complex situations in their day-to-day activities. Reflective thinking helps learners develop higher-order thinking skills by prompting learners to a) relate new knowledge to prior understanding, b) think in both abstract and conceptual terms, c) apply specific strategies in novel tasks, and d) understand their own thinking and learning strategies (Hmelo & Ferrari, 1997). PBL provides learners with instructional mechanisms that can increase their reflective thinking while exploring authentic and illstructured problems, participating in social interactions, and receiving coaching from peers and teachers (Albanese & Mitchell, 1993; Donahuse, 1999; Hmelo & Ferrari, 1997). This mindful stance toward learning is essential for efficient development of reflective thinking and ultimately knowledge construction. However, the research on factors that may affect reflection during PBL is limited. Previous studies have sought to identify factors that influenced reflection by looking at the activities in which learners engage during the PBL process (van den Hurk, et al., 1999). These studies have identified factors that may encourage reflective thinking but it is still unclear which factors the learner feels prompts valuable reflection. Answering questions such as how do we support reflective thinking in a PBL environment requires identifying both the factors that might prompt reflective thinking and examining learner perceptions about those factors. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to identify factors that learners perceived as important in facilitating their own reflections during learning activities. Examining research-based factors for prompting reflective thinking in a PBL environment would be helpful in several areas. First it would simplify the further analysis of factors prompting reflective thinking in PBL by reducing the number of variables. Second it would provide a meaningful and useful framework for discussing design factors that support learners' reflective thinking when participating in a PBL lesson in a classroom. Theoretical Framework What is reflective thinking? John Dewey introduced the concept "reflective thought." Dewey's most basic assumption was that learning improves to the degree that it arises out of the process of reflection. Dewey (1933) defined reflective thinking as "active, persistent, and careful consideration of a belief or supposed form of knowledge on the grounds that reflective thinking supports the belief or knowledge and the further conclusions one can draw about it. This cycle is determined by the production of changes one finds on the whole satisfactory or by the discovery of new features which give the situation new meaning and change the nature of questions to be explored". Moon (1999) believed that reflective thinking is a chain of ideas that is aimed at a conclusion and is more than a stream of consciousness; whereas, Ginning (1991) believed that reflective thinking was a behavior that involves active, persistent, and careful consideration of any belief or practice that promotes understanding of underlying beliefs and applying newly gained knowledge to new situations. These studies agree that reflective thinking includes the process of analyzing and making judgment about what has happened. Reflective thinking experiences are associated with increased motivation, willingness to take risks, enhanced self-esteem and independence. Why is it important to support reflective thinking in a PBL lesson? We can find an answer in the characteristics of PBL. PBL provides an environment where learners encounter ill structured problem situations. In reality, PBL takes place in settings that are characterized by a great deal of ambiguity, complexity, variety, and conflicting values that make unique demands on the learner's skills and knowledge. As a result, learners in a PBL lesson are constantly making choices about the nature of practice problems and how to solve them. Learners must be able to change ill-defined practice situations into those in which they are more certain BEST COPY AVAILABLE 217 about the most appropriate course of action to pursue. Therefore, the ability to reflect while acting is necessary to maintain the essence of effective practice in a PBL lesson. Prompting reflective thinking is especially important to young students because the students of this age are experiencing many developmental transits. Reflective thinking doesn't occur in middle-level students spontaneously. According to King and Kitchener (1994), reflective thinking has seven developmental stages. Reflective judgment is in the seventh stage and the term that they apply to the most advanced stage in their model. People in the seventh stage who have reflective judgment can acknowledge that there is no right answer and experts may disagree as to the best solution of a dilemma. King & Kitchener describe reflective judgment as similar to 'wisdom' that adults usually have. However, middle school students are in a different developmental stage than adults. The National Middle School Association reports that middle level students are in a transition period from concrete thinking to abstract thinking. Therefore, they need some supportive activities to prompt their reflection in order for them to make learning meaningful and active. Therefore, it is necessary to prompt reflective thinking for middle-level students who are in their concrete thinking stage. How then, do we prompt middle school students' reflective thinking in a PBL lesson? Research suggests that various elements in PBL are related to prompting students' reflective thinking. Previous research indicates that tasks, teachers, instructional environments, and reflective thinking tools are key elements that support reflective thinking in PBL (Andrusyszyn, 1997; Lin, 1999; Moon, 199; Barrow, 1998). First, ill-structured, authentic, and complex tasks are known to promote reflective thinking. These features of the task help students think reflectively because they come from real-world experiences, have no single formula for conducting an investigation to resolve the problem, and require more information to understand the problem situation (Stepien & Pyke, 1997). Second, the role of teacher is important in prompting reflective thinking during PBL. Acco