Pixel International Conferences

The purpose of this study was to investigate if Problem-Based Learning (PBL) allows students to improve their learning in terms of developing questioning skills and understanding concepts, using a problematic scenario about seismic evaluation, prediction and prevention, in a Geology and Environment (GE) course, at Faculty of Sciences of the University of Porto (FCUP), in Portugal. Despite of its application all over the world and in almost any type of curriculum, there are few studies that integrate PBL in geoscience at higher education. GE copies frequently with problems that reflect the uncertainty and unpredictability which characterize the dynamic terrestrial systems. In the Portuguese university context, the GE scientific field is acknowledged as increasingly relevant and it is included in considerable number of geoscience courses. This investigation pretends to contribute to a shift in teaching and learning methodologies in higher education, promoting PBL as a methodology capable of having a positive effect on students attending natural sciences courses. This study involved a total of 33 students, that were divided in an experimental group (n=16), submitted to a PBL approach, and a comparison group (n=17), taught through the traditional teaching method. An Intervention Program was developed, during four weeks, for the experimental group, using real based seismic problematic scenario. Using mixed methods, triangulation methodology type, two investigation phases were drawn. In the first phase, of a qualitative nature, the students of the experimental group raised questions that were registered in a monitoring sheet, in order to be subsequently analyzed, according to a closed categorization procedure based on question cognitive level achieved. The second phase, involved a quasi-experimental study, in order to analyze the knowledge construction about seismic evaluation, prediction and prevention. In this quantitative study, was used as a research tool a validated problem solving pre and posttest. The data obtained in the first phase shows that students were able to pose questions from all categories, mostly high cognitive level ones like “meaning-oriented” and “relational”. In the second investigation phase, results from the pretest showed the two groups were equivalent in terms of knowledge. After the intervention program, analyzing the results obtained from design “between subjects”, no significant differences were found, but the experimental group achieved a higher mean. In the design “within subjects”, there were significant differences. Also, in this case, the experimental group performed better than the comparison group. Thus, the didactic potential of PBL, applied to the resolution of this type of ill-structured problems, through a collaborative research path, can contribute to the improvement of students' complex abilities and competences of questioning and knowledge construction, sustaining an academic formation more adapted with the challenges of the 21st century.

Keywords: Problem Based Learning, Problematic Scenarios, Environmental Geology, Higher Education, Questioning.