LEARNING STYLES AS PREDICTORS OF PROBLEM-BASED LEARNING SUCCESS

IN THE INFORMATION SYSTEMS CLASSROOM

Timothy OlsenRichard WelkeCenter for Process InnovationGeorgia State University

Presented at SIG-ED 2008 – Paris, France

Research Question

Can satisfaction with problem-based learning be explained by students’ learning styles?

What led me to ask this question:• NSF Grant (CPATH)• Feedback from students• Disrupting Class, Clayton Christensen,

2008

PBL is an answer

• Can we make courses more appealing? (low enrollment)

• Can we build life-long learners? (necessary in IS industries)

• Can we adopt a teaching model that emphasizes team work? (recruiters like this)

History of PBL• Background –

– Plato and Socrates required that their students think, retrieve information for themselves, search for new ideas and debate them in a scholarly environment. However, this process differs from the teacher-dominated approach used in most educational settings.

PBL is not a new teaching method. – 1968 PBL introduced in Canadian medical school– 1970’s many USA and European schools adopted varieties of

PBL– 1990’s introduced into many other professional schools and

colleges– 2007 Georgia State CIS program starts adoption

Our PBL Model

• Students work in small teams (4) with a leader & ‘roving’ facilitator

• Students share results and apply to problem• Individual reflection at end of problem• Problem as authentic for IS professional as

possible• Problem drives the learning

Our Measurement Model

Example Questions from Felder’s Learning Style Questionnaire

Learning Styles

Sample results from Felder and Solomon’s online questionnaire

Exploratory Results

N = 12

MeanACT/REF 6.416667VIS/VER 2.25SEN/INT 4.416667SEQ/GLO 4.916667

Questions I have

• Does anyone have experience using Grasha’s teaching or learning style survey instruments?

• Learning Style Instrument • Teaching Style Instrument • What are good measures of student

satisfaction?• What are your questions?