EVALUATION COMMITTEE
The Faculty Council has appointed the following adjudication committee to evaluate the thesis and the associated lecture: 

• Professor Eva Bendix Petersen, Research Centre for Problem-oriented project-learning, Roskilde Universitet, Danmark.
• Dr. Hans Christian Arnseth, Department of Education, University of Oslo, Norge.

Chairman:
Professor Pirkko Liisa Raudaskoski, Department of Communication and Psychology, Aalborg University.

Moderator:
Associate Professor Patrik Kjærsdam Telléus, Department of Health Science and Technology , Aalborg University.

ABSTRACT

In Problem-Based Learning (PBL) the learning takes its point of departure in a problem, teaching students relevant content knowledge. Despite this, there seems to be limited literature on how to develop these problems. Getting a better understanding of how these problems are developed will provide us with an in-depth understanding of how learning starts in PBL, providing insight to improve the practice. The focus for this thesis is shared problem construction between students and supervisors, thus the thesis seeks to answer the following research question:

From a conceptual learning perspective, what are the challenges and benefits of
shared problem construction and how does this process unfold interactively in the
group and in cooperation with the supervisor?

The thesis argues from a conceptual learning perspective that shared problem construction should lead to intrinsic motivation, which in the literature is often connected to learning transfer. These arguments are based on Dewey’s notion of genuine problems and theories of intrinsic motivation. Furthermore, video data of a group of engineering students’ work was collected from the first day of their third semester until their last. My research shows that shared problem construction is a complicated process that consists of different decision-making processes. It is complicated because the first step in PBL at Aalborg University is to construct an initial problem, which can then be reformulated and amended during the course of the semester. The complication, however, is found in the construction of the initial problem, which is done in a point of time where the engineering students have just started their semester and thus have limited knowledge of their subject field. This is evident in the data, that shows the internal discussions among the students become more “qualified” during the semester. In this aspect “qualified” should be understood as the ability to use subject-specific discourses in the discussions.

Another central focus was on the interactional nature of decision-making among the students. Decision-making processes are processes of power because the ability to make decisions and getting others to follow these decisions indicate an ability to direct others’ future actions. This becomes interesting to explore because Aalborg University encourages a democratic approach towards the student groups, giving each group member the same amount of power. However, power is always enacted and negotiated in the interaction, thus the thesis explores how this is done both internally among the students and with the students and supervisor. In this aspect power is operationalized as the ability to make one’s words match the world, but how is this interactively accomplished among the students? The thesis shows this is done by the ability to hold the floor, defined as the ability to either avoid or counter criticism directed towards one’s proposals. However, from a learning perspective the thesis emphasizes the ability to counter criticism is the one that should be encouraged, as it is healthy to have one’s decisions challenged because it provides an opportunity to explicitly conceptualize and reflect on why the decisions taken make sense and how this relates to specific subject knowledge. Furthermore, it also provides an opportunity to expand one’s knowledge, as different angles, or knowledge other than what oneself imagined, might be put into play.

The thesis discusses how being a student in a PBL curricula is a negotiation between different cultures: a specific discipline culture and a PBL student culture. Being a PBL student becomes a novice position that in one regard provides certain freedoms and autonomy; students become enabled to form their own learning journey in regard to their interests as long as it adheres to their learning goals, and at the same time they also have to argue how their decisions make sense in an engineering culture, thus they are bridging different identities: student and engineer. As a result, shared problem construction becomes a social action in which both the specific subject identity and the PBL identity are defined through ongoing negotiations internally in the group and between group members and their supervisor. The students navigate both between a PBL student and a subject identity, neither of which are they basically equipped to do, but learn to navigate through their engagement in the community of practice. Thus, a consequence of having a project over the course of a semester with relevant coursework, is the fluid nature of the content they are approaching. They start the project as novices, who lack relevant subject knowledge, thus affecting the scientific validity of their problem, and as they become socialized in the subject culture their problem becomes more qualified. Thus, the evolution of the problem could also be regarded as the evolution of the students becoming a member of the relevant community of practice (in this case engineering practice), providing the argument that the problem itself becomes an identity marker of the relevant subject practice and type of PBL undertaken