Undergraduate business students' perceptions of learning outcomes in problem based and faculty centered courses

This article compares undergraduate business students' perception of the effectiveness of faculty centric pedagogy and problem based learning (PBL) pedagogy. The 303 participating students had experienced both methodologies. The survey measured the students' perceptions of five learning outcomes: knowledge acquisition, problem solving, critical thinking, teamwork, and self-directed learning. Three areas were measured asking the students to assess their experiences using the rubric's designed by the American Association of Colleges and Universities' Values Project (Sullivan, 2015). The content knowledge gain was measured based on Blooms Taxonomy (Krathwohl, 2002), and the self-directed learning by Knowles definition 1975. The scales were tested for validity and reliability in a pre-test with a different student group. No significant difference based on students' perception of learning outcomes in undergraduate business courses is found between PBL taught classes and faculty lead classes across all five perceptions of learning outcomes. There is also no significant relationship between demographic characteristics of the subjects and learning outcomes. The research results opens the questions the effects of individual course based implementations of PBL, differences in the effects of PBL for undergraduate and graduate students, and the effectiveness of PBL pedagogy in a single course in a degree program.