Student Experiences of Problem-Based Learning in Engineering: Learning Cultures of PBL Teams

ii This study investigates the experiences of first year engineering students to a newly implemented engineering problem-based learning (PBL) curriculum at Victoria University; its effects on their approaches to learning and their learning outcomes. This qualitative study, which uses ethnographic approaches for data collection and analysis, focuses on the learning cultures that emerge in multicultural PBL teams by interpreting the responses of students to the new emphasis on autonomous learning. In the first year of the curriculum change in this PBL setting, this research captures and theorises student approaches to learning as a team and their learning outcomes by analysing the ways in which these students approach and direct their learning as individuals and as a team. This area has received little attention in engineering PBL curriculum research and has been overlooked in most PBL literature. It was found that student learning in PBL teams in this setting was mainly influenced by the attitudes, behaviour and learning approaches of the student members in tha