Problem Based Learning
- A unique method of learning

The curriculum is characterized by an educational system referred to as ‘Problem-Based Learning (PBL)’. In PBL, students have an active role and they themselves are to a large degree responsible for their own learning process, e.g. students have considerable control over the choice of literature.

Important advantages of PBL are:
- the student acquires knowledge that is directly useable and applicable,
- the student learns to learn, analyze and solve problems.
- the method gives students a great deal of responsibility for structuring their own studies, thus requiring a considerable degree of independence on their part.

Student-centered

In PBL, students do not spend hours listening to lectures, but attend a tutorial group meeting and a lecture once a week. The rest of the week consists of self study. The tutorial meetings are the core activity of the study program and are the driving force of learning. The initiative lies with the student: the learning method is explicitly ‘student-centered’ rather than ‘teacher-centered’. In this way, students easily discover those areas in which their knowledge falls short.

Design of the Psychology curriculum

The Psychology curriculum consists of a series of modules or ‘blocks’. Each year of the curriculum consists of eight blocks of five weeks each.

Every block covers one specific psychological topic/theme. All the activities the student undertakes during a course are related to this theme. Different types of course materials are presented, these include, for example, articles, book chapters, demonstrations of empirical phenomena or experiments, video or other multimedia illustrations and applications, which are always closely interrelated. The course-staff regards this as extremely important, as theoretical notions often remain abstract in conventional psychology education, without much reference to practical situations.

Task manuals

Each course in problem-based learning utilizes a “task manual” prepared by a team of instructors. The task manual contains all essential information regarding the learning during the term concerned: the person(s) responsible for the course, the subject matter of the course, the knowledge with the student must have acquired by the end of the course, the skills which will be taught during that period, the essential and recommended literature involved and the lectures. The primary component, however, is formed by the problems or assignments (in Ba3 usually five) for the tutorial group meetings (once a week during five weeks).
The task manual is always distributed to the students shortly before the beginning of a course.

Tutorial group meetings

Within a tutorial group meeting students work through assignments or problems described in the task manual. A tutorial group consists of 8 to 11 students with a ‘tutor’, a staff member who guides the group process but who does not provide answers to the problems. Students have to find the answers themselves together with the group. In order to support the learning process, one student acts as a chair. He or she structures the discussion of a problem and directs the interaction between group members to enable an effective discussion of the problem. The group meetings are obligatory.

Self-study and discipline

The exchange of ideas and knowledge within the tutorial group provides a basis for learning how to analyze problems. Students learn to formulate and discuss their thoughts and to cooperate with each other. Furthermore, experience in the group encourages individual study and effective planning of the available study time. The students are expected to organize the learning process by themselves. They must be able to determine the way in which they want to solve their practical problems by their own.

The PBL method demands a great sense of responsibility and discipline from the individual student. However, at the same time, working in small groups is stimulating and rewarding for all participants. Furthermore, the small group setting invites for informal contacts and prevents social isolation of students. However, exchange students should be aware that large differences might exist between the educational method at their home university and the PBL method at Erasmus University Rotterdam. Each individual student should carefully consider whether or not the PBL method would be a suitable teaching method in his or her specific case.

Use of information and communications technology (ICT) – www.psyweb.nl

The psychology curriculum makes intensive use of modern ICT possibilities. Students have access to their own e-mail facilities and are encouraged to make frequent use of the electronic learning environment, ‘PsyWeb’, which has been developed especially to the support of PBL. Among other things, this enables students to search for information in e-books and e-journals, view video clips and to conduct their own experiments. PsyWeb is also used to support team efforts between students.