The findings of this study provide the aspects to the nursing educator with the students’
experiences of PBL learning methods and perspectives of tutor roles, which are beneficial for the development of application of PBL in the nursing education curriculum in Finland.
Compared with traditional teaching method, PBL has its dominant position to assist the students to prepare for the learning skills and capacity acquired in the future clinical working situations. Based on the students’ general acceptance of PBL as learning method, it is necessary to strengthen the superiority and improve the disadvantages occurring in the process of PBL.
Regarding to the knowledge and skills development, the findings showed that PBL could be utilized as learning method for nursing students to explore more knowledge independently and simultaneously promote other learning skills. The findings identified the development of individual interaction in the process of PBL was beneficial for students’ adaptation in the future clinical working environments. The nursing students should find their own roles and responsibilities in the group work and independent work. The mechanism of PBL’s process in this study revealed that the PBL’s tutors should improve a more complete framework of PBL in order to make students receive more learning benefits from this learning method.
Based on the findings in relation to tutors’ roles, both guidance and supports from tutors were important for nursing students’ learning process in the PBL. These roles could facilitate the
students’ ability of self-evaluation in the learning process. Meanwhile, the tutors’ roles were also suggested to developed based on the students’ learning needs.
Several recommendations were presented to develop the application of PBL in nursing education.
Finding: The nursing students could understand the content of PBL case in an appropriate level, but the content of PBL case could also limit the exploration of knowledge.
Recommendation: The tutor can continue to apply the same level of PBL case for the nursing students who firstly start applying this new method. Furthermore, it is also considerable for the tutor to prepare for complicated case according to the evaluation on students’ advanced adaption and acceptance to this new method. It is good to provide more challenges to the students gradually.
Finding: The students still need more clear criteria and guidance from the tutors in the phase of question synthesis in PBL.
Recommendation: In this part, the students should always be supported to express and share personal opinions with other group members, which will be beneficial to expand the thinking range in the group discussion. Meanwhile, the tutor could ask the students to list all the potential questions synthesized from all of the group members, which will be easy for the tutor to evaluate the quality of questions. Regarding the level of question, the tutor could encourage the groups to take some challenges in the different questions, which could be based on the evaluation to the group’s previous work respectively.
Finding: Challenges existed in the information searching process.
Recommendation: The related searching skills could be introduced in the PBL info lecture. In addition, it should be encouraged for the students to share individual searching process and used key words in class. The students should be encouraged to explore the searching skills with the assistance from the university library. The tutors could also give the examples for the students about how to select authorized knowledge sources. When evaluating the groups’
reports, the tutors could also give the feedback on the reference lists.
Finding: Students’ learning motivation could be affected negatively by group members Recommendation: The students should understand the individual learning responsibilities under the group learning atmosphere of PBL. It should be suggested for the students to make personal learning objectives before the starting of PBL, which could be beneficial for build learning motivation. The students should pay attention on personal learning process at first.
Simultaneously, it is necessary for students to realize how to cooperate with different students to make the maximum results in group work based on the effective communication and interaction. The tutors could also discover the students with less motivation and provide necessary consultation to strengthen the students’ adaptation. The tutor should treat each group member individually with various methods and supports to enhance students’ learning motivation, which could be a challenge for tutors. Maybe each group member could make self-evaluation and peer review at the end of PBL cycle.
Finding: Time arrangement for PBL was mainly considered as appropriate.
Recommendation: It could be suggested to supply larger range of time for students’ first application of PBL. Compared with traditional lecture, the PBL required more independent learning time out of the class. The PBL course could be relatively arranged evenly in the whole semester, which might also balance the students learning workload among different courses.
Finding: The students expected tutors’ participation and supports in the PBL.
Recommendation: Regarding to the experiences of students, it is obvious to notify that students expect to be focused in the whole process of PBL through tutors’ participation and support. Hence, the tutors should consider the more effective manner to express tutors’
guidance and support in time. The criteria for feedback and evaluation should be renewed into a more appropriate manner to enhance students’ motivation for self-learning and group cooperation under the PBL’s learning context.
Finding: The tutors’ roles need to be developed more.
Recommendation: The tutors are responsible for guiding the students with learning directions and certifying the students learning range maintained on the correct track. The tutors should
have close participation within the PBL process but not replace the students’ learning roles.
Vast professional nursing experience of tutors receive good impression from the students due to tutors’ assistance in sharing concepts and approaches with advanced views. The tutors should be encouraged to combine personal clinical experience with the guidance for students’
learning.