Q Academy of Management Learning & Education, 2015, Vol. 14, No. 2, 173–186. http://dx.doi.org/10.5465/amle.2013.0245

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Problem-Based Learning:Lessons From Medical Education

and Challenges forManagement Education

TONI UNGARETTIJohns Hopkins University

KENNETH R. THOMPSONDePaul University

ALEX MILLERUniversity of Tennessee

TIM O. PETERSONNorth Dakota State University

The call for greater emphasis on relevant skills in the preparation of business andmanagement majors spans several decades, but progress remains elusive. For example, thePorter and McKibbin report (1988) was accepted as ground shaking at the time; however, itseems that the ground has not shaken very much since. Critics suggest the need for greateremphasis on development of relevant management skills appears just as evident today as itwas decades ago (Mintzberg, 2004; Rubin &Dierdorff, 2009). Problem-based learning (PBL) is anapproach to education focused on skills development (Savery, 2006). In an effort to understandPBL’s potential as a pedagogy, the first part of this article briefly reviews its use in medicalschools, the arena of professional education in which PBL has its longest andmost widespreaduse. In the second part, we draw upon medical school experience, research literature, andpersonal experiencewith PBL to identify and discuss seven critical challenges in applying thisapproach to skill building in managerial education.

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“A former student told me the first thing hisboss told him his first day on the job: ‘Forgeteverything you learned in business school. Nowyou’re going to learn how things are done inthe real world.’ That bothered me as a businessprofessor. Would a hospital administrator saythat to a brand-new medical doctor?”

—(Boone, 2013)

Management education needs more emphasison skills development (Thompson & Koys, 2010;Klimoski & Amos, 2012; Boyatzis, Stubbs, & Taylor,2002; Dierdorff, Rubin, & Morgeson, 2009; Rousseau,

2006; Rousseau&McCarthy, 2007; Rubin &Dierdorff,2009; Pincus & Rudnick, 2013; Association of Amer-ican Colleges and Universities, AAC&U, 2013).Even though the call for greater emphasis onskill building in business education has echoedthroughout academia for decades (e.g., the Porterand McKibbn report of 1988), there has only beenincremental movement in the recommendeddirection.A review of the literature reveals several catalogs

of critically important skills, but it also documentsour failure to adequately develop most of these inour students (Pfeffer & Fong, 2002; Mintzberg, 2004).

173Copyright of the Academy of Management, all rights reserved. Contents may not be copied, emailed, posted to a listserv, or otherwise transmitted without the copyright holder’sexpress written permission. Users may print, download, or email articles for individual use only.

Several studies have consistently identified keyskills needed by graduates for successful careerentry. They include effective written and oralcommunications, critical and creative thinking,leading, problem solving, personal continuouslearning skills, information literacy, and ethicalproblem solving. These are confirmed through var-ious studies, for example: the American Societyfor Training and Development (ASTD) and U.S.Department of Labor study (Carnevale, Gainer, &Meltzer, 1990); the Canadian study on skills foremployability (Evers, Rush, & Berdrow, 1998); theNational Association of Colleges and Employersstudy (Coplin, 2003); the global achievement gapstudy by Wagner (2010); and the Association ofAmerican Colleges and Universities study (2013). Inaddition, the O*Net database (United States De-partment of Labor, 2013) provides career-relateddata for 974 occupations, including itemizations ofthe knowledge and skills needed for specific jobcategories. This extensive database has been usedto demonstrate the gap in skill development inmanagement education. For example, Rubin andDierdorff (2009) used 52 managerial occupations intheO*NET database to analyzeMBA curricula. Theyfound the essential managerial skills needed toeffectively prepare students for managerial careerswere not evident in typical managerial programs.Thompson and Koys (2010) reached a similar con-clusion when they found that over 50% of jobs re-quiring a BBA or an MBA in the O*NET databaserequired skills such as active listening, criticalthinking, time management, speaking skills, moni-toring skills, using judgment, coordination, negoti-ation skills, and skills to select, develop, motivate,and direct employees.

Therefore there is a documented gap betweenthe skills needed for many business and manage-ment careers and those acquired during a student’sacademic career. Problem-based learning is onepromising approach focused on integrating skillsand knowledge in an academic setting. It has rootsin medical education for almost 50 years with dem-onstrated effectiveness.

PROBLEM-BASED LEARNING (PBL): BACKGROUND

Problem-based learning (PBL) is a pedagogy spe-cifically created for the integration of contentknowledge and skill development. Although varied,most definitions of PBL share the common charac-teristics summarized by Barrows (1996)—they beginwith a problem to guide the learning, are learner

centered, view the instructor as a facilitator, utilizecollaborative small groups, and employ self-directed learning and reflection to acquire newknowledge in a process exemplified in Figure 1. Theessential defining characteristic is learning struc-tured around an ambiguous and complex problemin which the professor becomes a facilitator sup-porting and guiding students in their attemptsto solve a real-world problem. The PBL processdevelops critical thinking and problem-solvingskills, problem synthesis skills, imagination andcreativity, information search and evaluation skills,ability to deal with ambiguity and uncertainty, oraland written communication skills, and collabora-tion skills.We first explore PBL’s use and success in medical

education, the professional arena in which PBL hasseen its most extensive use. We then discuss chal-lenges in applying PBL in business schools.

PBL in Medical Education

Of all the professional schools employing PBL,medical schools have the longest history and themost careful assessments of its results. We agreewith Simon (1967) when he argues medical schoolsoffer a useful model for management and otherprofessional schools. We briefly review the use ofPBL and its results in medical schools before turn-ing to the challenges of applying the pedagogy inbusiness education.In 1899, William Osler was the first educator to

bring medical students into the hospital environ-ment for a hands-on approach to medical training,the foundation for PBL (Dornan, 2005; Camp, 1996).

FIGURE 1Example of the Problem-Based Learning Process

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PBL first took root and rapidly grew after WorldWarII. This era was roiled by the confluence of rapiddevelopment of new, and often costly, medicalprocedures, the emergence of new, and little un-derstood diseases, and the daunting increasedvolume and shrinking half-life of medical knowl-edge. Recognizing that these challenges requiredeffective acquisition of both knowledge and skills,in 1969, a group of medical educators launched aninnovative problem-based learning (PBL) approachto medical education at McMaster University inCanada (Barrows 1985). Their new curriculum fo-cused on a problem-solving process characterizedby (1) learning in small groups of students, (2) theuse of real patient problems and simulatedpatients, and (3) a systematic and centrally con-trolled approach to the organization and manage-ment of the program. Success with the programquickly brought widespread adoption of the ap-proach beginning in 1974 with Maastricht Universityin the Netherlands, Newcastle University in Aus-tralia in 1978, and the University of New Mexico inthe United States in 1979 (Hillen, Scherpbier, &Wijnen, 2010).

For those unfamiliar with PBL, the following pro-vides an example of how studentsmight experiencePBL in a medical diagnosis course. The first day ofclass, instead of receiving a lecture, students aregiven a problem such as, “A mother with her infantdaughter has come into the office and indicated thatthe child was experiencing repeated spikes intemperature and, during which, she became le-thargic. What sorts of questions would you ask thisparent in order to determine the patient’s medicalhistory?” The class session would focus on the de-velopment of a list of questions that should beasked of the mother and why those questions arerelevant. The students would also note the in-formation they have, the information they need, andpossible sources of information. They would seta plan of action and identify needed resources. Thesubsequent class would provide the students withthe answers to medical history of the mother andchild and focus on the additional informationgathered and potential new questions identified.Given these, the students would identify a set ofprocedures (tests) to help diagnose what may bewrong with the patient and why these tests arerelevant. The third class would focus on any newsymptoms that appeared and a set of results of thetest requested in the previous class, leading tofurther testing of the patient or to a plan of treat-ment, and explanations of why these actions were

appropriate. The outcomes of the plan of treatmentwould contribute to the process, and future classeswould focus on additional problems in a similarfashion.The rapid spread of PBL in medical education is

testimony to its widely recognized effectiveness indeveloping better doctors (MacDonald, 1997). Forexample, Harvard Medical School planned a long-term controlled experiment to evaluate PBL, butafter the first semester its use as a successful ex-perience was so evident and compelling that thecontrol group was dropped, and PBL was solelyused (Tabbara, personal communication, Nov. 4,2012). Several authors have chronicled the charac-teristics and features of successful PBL in medicaleducation. Duch, Groh, and Allen (2001) describedspecific skills developed in PBL, including theability to engage in critical thinking; to analyze andsolve complex, real-world problems; to identify ef-fective learning tools; to utilize communicationskills, and to engage in a process of continuouslearning. Schmidt and van der Molen (2001) ob-served that learners who experience PBL oftenhave a stronger clinical orientation. In a system-atic review of 102 institutions where 13 met the in-clusion criteria of controlled trials, Koh et al. (2008)reported that PBL had a positive effect on mostphysicians’ competence after graduation in regardto social and cognitive dimensions. Vernon andBlake (1993) concluded that PBL was equal to tra-ditional approaches in terms of scores on medicalboard examinations and superior in the demon-stration of better clinical problem-solving skills.Despite this body of research, some scholars re-

main cautious about the use of PBL at the expense ofmore traditional educational pedagogies. For ex-ample, Newman (2003) noted inconsistencies invarious PBL approaches when he reported that “thelimited high quality evidence available from exist-ing reviews does not provide robust evidence aboutthe effectiveness of different kinds of PBL” (p. 7).One’s position on traditional education versus

problem-based education seems to hinge on therelative value one places on mastery of contentknowledge versus development of practical skills. Inan extensive review of PBL, Albanese and Mitchell(1993) noted that graduates of problem-based medi-cal programs sometimes report a lack of confidenceregarding their content backgrounds compared tothose who completed a traditional program. Neville(2009) in a review of several meta-analyses reportedthat the effect of PBL on knowledge depends “onwhether one combines application of knowledge

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with factual recall or separates the acquisition ofknowledge fromknowledge application” (p. 7).Whilethis debate continues, it is worth noting that medicaleducators continue to “votewith their feet” as the useof PBL in educating medical professionals continuesto expand—a trend has caught the attention of somefaculty in management education.

PBL in Management Education

Compared to medical education, there is a relativepaucity of research of PBL in managerial education(Hmelo-Silver, 2004). There is evidence that PBLsupports the need to engage students, a key ele-ment in improving learning outcomes and studentsatisfaction (Dean & Jolly, 2012; Hallinger & Lu,2011). Advocates have supported the use of PBL asa means to increase student engagement (Godfrey,Illes, & Berry, 2005). Koh et al. (2008) reported thatPBL had a positive effect on competence in socialand cognitive dimensions. Neville (2009) reportedmoderate to strong levels of support for PBL ina meta-analysis of four competencies related toclinical practice: (1) coping with uncertainty, (2)appreciation of legal and ethical aspects, (3) com-munication skills, and (4) self-directed continuinglearning (p. 9).

Drawing upon their firsthand experience withusing PBL to educate business professionals,Stinson and Milter (1996) reported:

We now have more than ten years’ experienceimplementing problem-based learning. Whilesome may still have concerns about the ef-fectiveness of the process, we do not. Rather,our concerns center on the implementationof problem-based learning. Inappropriatelyused, problem-based learning will not lead torobust learning (p. 37).

We concur: PBL offers an important complementto pedagogies focused on imparting contentknowledge. The issue is not that one is better thanthe other, but how both can be done well (Varanelli,Baugher, & Hall, 2001). The goal is to integrateinstructional approaches with different strengthsto maximize student learning outcomes, includingcompetent performance in real business.

Placing PBL in the Broader Curriculum

So, how does PBL fit alongside other more commonbusiness school pedagogies, such as lecture and

discussions and case studies? Is PBL to be part ofa larger course, the basis of its own course, part ofa major, or cut across an entire program? As advo-cates of PBL, we might encourage broad applica-tion. However, our enthusiasm is tempered byexperience, suggesting the need to see PBL asa pedagogical tool to complement or substituteother pedagogies as needed to achieve learninggoals. Simon (1967) suggested that “almost everycurricular area can be organized so that practicalmanagement problems are rubbed up against eco-nomic and psychological theories and mathemati-cal techniques—and conversely” (p. 13). The extentof its use needs to be matched to learning prioritiesand organizational realities regarding the institu-tion’s culture, processes, and commitment.In the calls for greater emphasis on skills de-

velopment, nothing suggesting emphases on con-tent knowledge is wrong or should be whollyreplaced. In fact, as we discuss below, contentknowledge is an essential form of preparation forPBL. Likewise, we do not see PBL as a replacementfor its better-known relative, case-based learning(CBL). The major difference between the two is thatCBL provides cases that have solutions; whereasPBL provides problems that are yet to be solved.CBL provides a safe environment in which to takerisks; whereas PBL provides a risky environmentwith a safety net. PBL provides more skill de-velopment in high-performance team work andin building structure within an unstructured envi-ronment; whereas CBL provides a more structuredenvironment for the team with much of the mate-rial needed to make a decision embedded in thecase. In short, we see the need for a blend ofpedagogies—lecture and discussion, CBL, andPBL—in most business schools, and in Table 1 wehighlight the strengths of each.However, the blending of pedagogies is only a

part of the challenge in bringing PBL to the curric-ulum: PBL, itself, must be developed with care toensure that it can be an effective force in achievingstudent learning outcomes. We now focus on someof the important key issues in developing an effec-tive PBL experience.

ISSUES IN EMPLOYING PROBLEM-BASEDLEARNING (PBL)

Our varied personal experiences with PBL convinceus there is no one set of universally applicableguidelines for making PBL work. Rather, there mustbe high-level administrative support for the change

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that PBL requires. Also, faculty involved must tailortheir efforts to the particular situation they face tocustomize the learning experience to the kinds ofcontent and skills they want to develop. In the sec-tions below, we look at the seven key issues inimplementing PBL depicted in Figure 2. For eachissue, we explore options faculty face and proposeexamples and guidelines intended to aid them inmaking the most appropriate trade-offs. This dis-cussion begins with a focus on the first key issue,the scale and scope of the PBL experience.

Scale and Scope

A team of faculty members interested in bringingPBL into a curriculum will need to consider thequestion of scale and scope in relation to theachievement of identified student learning out-comes. For instance, the multidiscipline teamapproach required to implement PBL at a program-wide level or multicourse level requires theprogram be organized collectively, with each dis-cipline surrendering some autonomy to create thesort of “controlled chaos” experience PBL entails.Hillen et al. (2010), in a chronology of the devel-opment of PBL at Maastricht University in theNetherlands, reported that their preexisting inter-disciplinary central organization of the curriculumallowed for the easy identification and resolutionof issues, especially in regard to quality andquantity of instruction, and performance standardsfor the disciplines.

In our experience, team design and governancecan be stymied by stressing the individual facultymember’s academic freedom, concerns about in-sufficient representation of specific disciplines,increased requirements of faculty time for co-ordination and collaboration, and inflexible ad-ministrative structures. Therefore, it is importantthat institutions considering PBL analyze theirunique culture to determine the commitment andfeasibility of faculty and administrators’ adjust-ment to the requirements of PBL in the selection ofscale and scope for their program and courses. Thisis essential for the success of its implementation.An example is the challenge faced by Ohio Uni-

versity faculty as they developed and implementedan MBA-wide PBL curriculum (Stinson & Milter,1996). This 2-year program was characterized bya series of nine residencies. The program centeredon eight projects focused on large macroproblemsthat address business holistically. To provide thissort of program, faculty had to collectively agree onthe eight problems forming its basis, allocate timeacross disciplines, ensure that essential discipline-specific content was somehow woven into the eightproblems, sequence delivery of content to fit theneeds of students trying to solve the problem as wellas the needs of faculty trying to ensure a logical se-quence of content specific to their individual topics,and agree upon and administer an integrated eval-uation and grading scheme. Such shared respon-sibilities are in sharp contrast to the sentiment that“professors rule their courses” prevalent in many

TABLE 1Contrasting the Three Most-Common Means of Learning in Business

EducationLecture/Discussion-based

learning Case-based learning Problem-based learning

Instructors’ role inlearning

Instructor presents fact-basedlectures to students; can teachvery largenumbers of students.

Instructor guides students inanalysis of prepared case;usually works with multiplegroups (size varies) of students.

Instructor facilitates studentimmersion in problem; usuallyworks with multiple groups ofapproximately 4–8 students.

Relative strengths Knowledge and conceptsconveyed in familiar formatand setting.

Exposure to broad range ofsettings in controlled andconvenient format.

Skill development by addressingproblems in their naturalsettings.

Costs and efficiencies Relatively low instructorpreparation; may lend itself toeconomies of scale through itsuse with large-size classes.

Additional cost incurred inpreparation or acquisition ofcases; typically taught inmoderate–small classes.

Extensive set-up costs withevery class or project;typically delivered in smallerclasses broken into teams.

Complementary aspects Provides factual knowledge andtheoretical concepts that canbe drawn upon in cases orproblems.

Provides skill development andpractice in controlled, low-riskenvironment.

Provides skill development andpractice in live businessenvironment (range from lowto high risk) with no previouslyestablished solution.

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schools. The evolution of PBL at Ohio Universityresulted in an MBA that integrated content courseswith PBL. Pace University studied and adapted theOhio University model when it ventured into the useof PBL (Varanelli, Baugher, & Hall, 2001).

Another example was when the University ofTennesseeMBA program adopted PBL as the core ofits pedagogy program-wide. It required the facultyto invent entirely new processes for collaboration,planning, and consensus decision making. Thefaculty created a “pit” process in which anyoneproposing a session in the program had to standbefore the participating faculty to justify the ses-sion’s inclusion. Approval required consensus ofthe whole, in which “100% of the team members areat least 70% comfortable with the proposal.” Fre-quently, experts in one area needed to make a casefor the inclusion of content, a significant departurefrom the norm of faculty members having virtuallyuncontested authority over the content of their

courses. This created some challenges in de-veloping a single 12-hour required course for thefirst year, particularly when a new faculty memberreplaced an experienced one. Eventually, facultyworked throughmany of the issues facing collectiveplanning and governance and gradually modifiedtheir approach to PBL.Their early experience with PBL convinced fac-

ulty of its potential, and today there is still perva-sive use of PBL at the University of Tennessee. NowPBL takes place at the individual course level. Forexample, for the past several years, all MBA stu-dents take a required course built around work asconsulting teams engaged by executive directors oflocal nonprofit organizations on problems selectedby the nonprofit and the faculty overseeing thecourse, and recently, this course has been adaptedfor use in a new undergraduate course.Our advice to faculty considering PBL is to bal-

ance the costs and benefits incurred by moving tobroader applications of PBL. There are benefits tobe had at the broadest levels of scale and scope, asPBL is designed to align with the achievement ofstudent learning outcomes, evidence of which isrequired for accreditation (e.g., see Association ofAmerican Colleges and Universities, 2013). How-ever, a smaller effort made available to a greaternumber of students may be a logical approach tothose just starting on a PBL journey. There are im-portant gains to be made by adopting PBL at anylevel, and, especially when first starting out, it maymake more sense to focus on narrow applications,starting with a single course, or even a singlemodule in a larger course, and expanding the scaleand scope as the organization is ready. Scale andscope is one key issue, with faculty preparation asthe second significant consideration.

Faculty Preparation

None of the authors have ever met a business-school faculty member who has had significantformal training in PBL; any expertise typicallycomes from some mix of informal mentoring andlearning by trial and error. In other words, facultymembers preparing themselves to teach using PBLwill probablymanage the process personally. Whatissues will they need to address?A roadmap is the best place to start any journey,

and our hope is this article and its 7-part model willprovide at least a high-level map of the variousterritories to be crossed. But, beyond the overallroadmap, when it comes to what can be done to

FIGURE 2Issues in Employing PBL

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personally prepare for the challenges ahead, wesee a pair of critical issues to address.

First, the faculty member must become comfort-able in dealing with ambiguous, real-world prob-lems for which there are no ready answers. PBL ismessier than teaching textbook knowledge andengaging in case-based learning. Students oftencome across genuine dilemmas, unfamiliar chal-lenges, and “unknowables” that can be discon-certing to accomplished and seasoned faculty. Oursuggestion for such colleagues is to reframe theirexpectations. Self-discovery is important in thisprocess. The faculty member needs to guide theprocess with the right questions and suggest usefulapproaches to dealing with situations wherebuilding student maturity and competence calls forthem to critically think, problem solve, negotiate,and communicate.

The toolbox for PBL instructors needs to includethe critical thinking skills, logical analytical frame-works, content resources, and group-processingtechniques suited for discovering answers. Hav-ing these tools available allows us to be comfort-able saying, “I don’t know the answer,” because wecan follow that statement up with “but I have somegood ideas on how to approach the question.” Thisshift in our role as faculty members goes hand inhand with a shift in emphasis from our teaching tostudents’ learning skills.

Second, facultymemberswhowant to incorporatePBL in their teaching must have a good source ofindustry or organization contacts to select variedproblems.We are reminded of a colleague at awell-respected university, serving on a faculty devel-opment committee, who made the comment, “Sureit would be nice to invite executives to campus tointeract with our faculty, but we don’t know anyexecutives, and even if we did, they would not beinterested in working with us.” This colleaguewould find PBL very difficult.

Faculty who regularly engage their students inworking on “live” problems from the world of busi-ness need a network of business contacts they candraw upon. And, to ensure that students in PBL willbenefit from these interactions, the network willneed to be large enough to allow the faculty mem-ber to pick and choose from multiple options, sincenot all practitioners make equally good teachingpartners. To facilitate this, we have found it usefulto network and collaborate with various centersacross our universities. For example an alumnicenter, an internal clearinghouse, and centers fo-cused on entrepreneurship, tech transfer, family

business, and nonprofits have all provided theauthorswith useful and interesting problems for ourstudents. Although faculty members need to pre-pare differently, students need to understand thattheir class experience and expectation will changeunder a PBL environment. Deliberate student prep-aration is the third key issue significant to an ef-fective PBL learning experience.

Student Preparation

Although there are exceptions, very few studentswill come to management education classes pre-pared for PBL unless there is an intentional effort toprepare them. PBL has been adopted in a few U.S.middle and high schools (see, New Tech Network,2013; Buck Institute for Education, 2013) with reportsof success (Ravitz, 2010). But these schools are stillthe exception rather than the rule, and the typicalstudent will benefit from efforts to prepare for a typeof learning they are likely to find new and verydifferent from their previous experience.A pedagogy based on delivering content through

lectures offers a certain comfort for both studentsand instructors. There is a structure, a set of normsclarifying expectations, and a linearity to the pro-cess missing from PBL (the instructor teaches cer-tain facts and the students then indicate that theyknow them through some sort of testing). By com-parison, PBL looks hectic, disorganized, and evenchaotic. Unless students are prepared for this dif-ference, they may be distracted by unnecessaryanxiety and feel they are not learning anything,since they cannot recite the long lists of concreteideas typically conveyed in lecture-based learning(Michaelson, Peterson, & Sweet, 2009).In our experience, preparing students for PBL

entails blending it with complementary pedagogiesand carefully managing student expectations. Weknow of very few cases in which students engagein PBL without first—or simultaneously—being ex-posed to relevant content knowledge through lec-tures and discussions. We also have found thatcase-based learning is a useful middle ground, of-fering a great way to transition from straight lec-tures and discussion to PBL.DePaul’s Integrated Marketing Education pro-

gram exemplifies this sort of preparation (L. Hamer,personal communication, spring 2013). The de-partment had a traditional lecture approach formost of its classes, but also exposed students tocase studies in several courses. To manage stu-dent expectations, the nontraditional nature of the

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program was explained before students enrolledand reinforced early during their participation inthe class. The program was defined in the catalogwith the following:

The real world focus of IME (Integrated Mar-keting Education) is an outgrowth of DePaul’sstrong links to the Chicago business commu-nity. Instead of a series of classes that addressa single marketing function, the IME curricu-lum features courses that address marketingissues in the way that managers are likely toencounter them. The stage is set for life-longlearning in the marketing profession (DePaulUniversity, 2014).

Admission to the program was competitive andentailed an interview. During this, the studentswere briefed about the nature of the course, includ-ing its emphasis on less-traditional approaches tolearning, the approach to the evaluation of theirperformance, and the potential challenges theymight experience. Selection was based on students’maturity, determined by responses in the interviewand by previous coursework. There needs to bea clear understanding that a PBL framework isdesigned for skill and knowledge development inan environment alien tomost students. PBL requiresstudents to be active participants in their education,and their education includes harder to measureskill development. The problem is the vehicle tocreate this more complex learning, so the choice ofthe problem is the fourth key issue critical to thesuccess of a PBL effort.

Problem Selection

By definition, the foundation of problem-basedlearning is the problem. Get the problem wrong,and the viability of the entire endeavor is in ques-tion. For many of us in our delivery of more tradi-tional courses, we did not have to worry much withthe choice of problems. Our role was to preparestudents to be future problem-solvers; we providethe knowledge and tools, and the real world pro-vides the problems after the students leave campus.But in PBL, the instructor shoulders the burden ofbringing the problems onto campus and into theclassroom.

Obviously, the problem needs to develop anddraw out the expertise associated with the partic-ular course or program; a course on internationalmanagement needs to involve problems related

to international firms and their operation. The bestproblems are often those striking a compromiseon several dimensions. They are neither overlycomplex nor trivially simple (varied with thescale and scope of the PBL effort as discussedabove). Ideally, a problem is big enough andcomplex enough to engage the complete team ofstudents and reduce opportunities for socialloafing (Comer, 1995). But, the problem needs to bedoable within the scope of the program, semester,or course in a typically crowded curriculum, andtractable enough to be meaningfully addressedby students within the allotted time frame. Fac-ulty will often choose common problems overextremely arcane or specialized problems; say,working out a production schedule for a smallmanufacturing firms rather than a hospital’s op-erating room. Finally, many of us feel it is impor-tant to engage a client organization wrestlingwith a strategic problem and an executive-levelchampion willing to work with the students toaddress it, as this opens up previously unavail-able possibilities for student learning and skilldevelopment.Below is a sampler of problems at the center of

some of our most successful semester-long PBLefforts:

• Should an industrial caterer purchase a resi-dential caterer business?

• How best might a manufacturer partner with anupstream supplier to create a single-sourcebusiness-to-business solution for customers?

• How can an investment firm improve its ac-curacy in submitting change orders oninvestments?

• What combination of metrics and scorecardsshould a nonprofit charter school adopt?

• What earned-income opportunities hold themost promise for a local zoo?

• How might a manufacturer design its packag-ing to make its electric lawn care products moreappealing to women?

While preparation is a big part of a successfulPBL intervention, what goes on in the class is alsoa key issue that can ensure the effectiveness of thePBL approach.

Teaching–Learning Process

Instructors need to prepare to efficiently managethe PBL process. So much of success with PBL boilsdown to the mundane issues of logistics and ad-ministration. Depending on the scale and scope ofthe PBL effort, the work entailed in managing itvaries from incidental (you describe a problem

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being faced by a company, and you ask the classto spend part of a session brainstorming options)to extensive (multiple teams each engage toaddress different problems with different com-panies in a course-long, semester-long, or evenprogram-long assignment). As the scale andscope expands, it becomes more critical forinstructors to be prepared with a system for effi-ciently managing the effort. Otherwise, the timerequired can simply overwhelm the best ofintentions, and we have often seen colleaguesback away from PBL because of the time and ef-fort required.

There is a clear inflection point in the relationshipbetween the scale of PBL problems and the amountof work required to manage them. When the projectentails an outside client organization paired withthe student teams, the work takes on an additionaland significant layer of complexity. In these sit-uations, the instructor must do much of the pre-work to ensure there is a commitment by the outsideclient organization to provide the necessary in-formation to the students and opportunities to en-gage with the students as the project unfolds. Thissort of engagement typically depends on the orga-nization finding real value in the student projectand assigning an executive to champion it. In ourexperience, this begins with the faculty memberestablishing clear performance expectations be-tween the client organization and the students, andthe faculty member closely monitoring the project’sprogress to ensure the delivery of the expectedvalue to sustain the relationship.

Table 2 provides a framework we have founduseful in building the systems we use to efficientlymanage PBL efforts that fall toward the middle ofthe range of possible scale and scope, such asa single class involving three or four teams of stu-dents engaged with different organizations on dif-ferent problems. With group work and PBL focus onskill development, an effective measurement ofstudent learning is the sixth key issue.

Evaluating Students

One form of feedback students respond to best isa grade, and a carefully designed and explainedgrading system can focus the learning process andimprove its effectiveness. Evaluating and gradingstudents in PBL is often a very different process fromthat commonly used in more traditional courses,which involves two major challenges. First, PBLis messier than more traditional pedagogies, and

second, skill development is a more slippery out-come to measure than knowledge capture.In a traditional lecture-based course, instructors

typically know the right answer to problems theypresent to their students, so grading is relativelysimple; the answer is either correct or not. In PBL,there are many possible right answers and manypartially right answers that may lead to a morecomplete answer. In addition, there are many pathsto those complete answers. The instructor may wishfor the students to explore as many paths as willbe useful in solving the problem because of thelearning opportunities this affords. At the sametime this complex system of possible paths andsolutions can lead students down blind alleys anddead ends, whichmay frustrate and discourage, butit can also lead to the acquisition of importantskills or the synthesizing of new problems. Howdoes one assign a grade in such messy, confusing,and varied situations?Alsowithin this messy context, how does one best

assess the extent to which skills are being de-veloped? This is an important goal, since muchof the value to be had from PBL is based on theskill development opportunities it provides. Skilldevelopment has been measured as attitudinalchanges through self-report measures (e.g., NewTech Network, 2013; Buck Institute for Education,2013; Decker, Brown, Vosahlik, Higginbotham, &Wilson, 2010) and by peer assessments (Peterson,2004). The instructor bases both approaches onperceptions of participants rather than more verifi-able measures. We typically address this at leastpartially by using outcome measures, such as anevaluation of a final report. While these may reflectanalytic and organizational skills, they may alsomiss other important interpersonal and leadershipskills developed as part of the PBL process.Given the several and varied challenges in

grading PBL work, a multitrait, multimeasure ap-proach seems appropriate. Faculty need to estab-lish criteria, scoring guides, and benchmarks tomeasure both team and individual student learningand performance (Ungaretti, Chomowicz, Caniffe,Weiss, Johnson, Dunn, & Cropper, 2009). In our ex-perience, most instructors using PBL will blendassessments, such as those evaluating the qualityof the finished report, the quality of the approach ormethodology used to address the project, the con-tributions to the team, and the knowledge and skillsdemonstrated.One option for use in this blended approach is

the other activity points (OAP) system designed to

2015 181Ungaretti, Thompson, Miller, and Peterson

deal with some of the messiness of PBL by eitherencouraging continued exploration or to redirectproblem-solving behavior to more potentially fruit-ful paths of exploration (Peterson, 2004). The ap-proach awards points for unexpected activities thathelped move the PBL process along, and it deductspoints for actions that inhibited the process.

For example, a recent teamworking in a PBL classrealized it would be beneficial for their client, theteam, and other stakeholders (in this case the in-structor) to get together so everyone knew eachother better and also so everyone was clear on theplan for addressing the agency’s challenge. There-fore, the team invited all the stakeholders to dinner.This activity was not part of the assigned problem,but it clearly moved the project forward in an ef-fective manner. To encourage the team to continueto build strong relationships with all stakeholdersand to encourage the open communication that wasfostered by the dinner, other activity points (OAP)were awarded to signal the positive affect of thisbehavior.

Another team started turning in detailed minutesfrom their team meetings to include action itemsdifferent teammembers were assigned. Theminutesallowed the instructor to see the inner workings ofthe team and to encourage the continuation of thisbehavior, OAPs were awarded.

On the other hand, in the same PBL class, an-other team found themselves entangled in anethical dilemma around a cash contribution toan agency that was questionable in how it hadbeen obtained. Since the team was not com-pletely open about how the contribution hadbeen obtained, a potential ethical situation wascreated, and it tarnished the reputation of theteam because they were not transparent and forth-coming. In this case OAPs were deducted to senda clear message that this type of behavior was notacceptable.In using OAP, the focus in grading is not on

answers or outcomes, but rather on the interactionswithin the group in keeping a messy process mov-ing in a positive direction. If skill development isa fundamental goal of a particular PBL effort—andit almost always is—then this needs to be a priorityin grading. Peer assessment can be done usingmultimeasures comparative perceptual data, but itmay also be desirable to assess skills with moretangible evidence, such as behaviors exhibited.Regardless of the method used, there is value in notwaiting to the end of the course to use them. We seebenefits from an assessment during the process sothat individuals assessed will have an opportunityto learn from the assessment and make improve-ment before the end of the class.

TABLE 2Examples of Questions That Shape an Efficient Delivery of PBL

Managing expectations

•Whatdocumentationwill beprovided to client companies explaining their roles, obligations, and the sorts of deliverables theycan expect?•What documentation will be provided to students explaining what they can expect from the instructor and the client organization, and

what sort of deliverables they will be expected to produce?• What is the process for resolving unexpected issues that will inevitably arise?

Developing a statement of work

• Will the instructor work with the client organization to establish the problem statement, or will students do this as part of theirassignment?

• Will the instructor provide a boilerplate statement of work to help ensure consistency across student efforts?• Will the instructor ensure that the client organization identifies a champion to serve as the students’ contact and liaison?•Whatwill be the responsewhen students and clients are partway through the termanddiscover a new,more exciting problem theywant

to pursue instead of the original problem?

Managing student engagement

• What is the level of effort, and how will the instructor monitor student and client effort?• Will the instructor be present when students engage with client organizations, or will they go alone?• What will be the process to address dysfunctional teams?• Will the course rely upon a master plan or generic framework all students use, or will each project be unique?

Note.Assumed scale/scope of PBL effort: A “midrange” effort inwhich student teams in a single class each engagewith different “clientorganizations.”

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Continuous improvement should be the part ofevery course and every program, so the seventhand final key issue is how to develop a process todefine the desired outcomes of a PBL approach,track the outcomes, and analyze the outcomes andmake improvements in the approach. We advocatea comprehensive approach to program analysis inusing PBL or not.

Evaluating Programs

Beyond evaluating students, faculty members havea responsibility to assess learning that occurs inany program. A thorough treatment of programevaluation is beyond our scope here, but givenour focus on PBL, it is important to consider thespecial challenges of assessing a program inten-ded to deliver skills development as opposed to justimparting knowledge. Consider the following twoprograms, which have successfully gone beyondevaluating knowledge delivery to also assessskills development outcomes for successful careerplacement.

The University of Wisconsin–Stout, a Baldrigerecipient (National Institute for Standards andTechnology, 2013), tracks the following outcomesrelated to its degree programs:

• Percentage of students with a job in their de-sired area at graduation.

• Students’ salary level in their positions whenhired.

• The students’ job position and salary after 5years.

• Alumni surveys that assess how well the pro-gram meets their career requirements.

• Surveys of hiring organizations to assess theirsatisfaction with both skill and content knowl-edge of those hired from the University.

The University of Wisconsin–Stout (2013) uses theinformation gathered to drive changes in its pro-grams and improve the alignment between whatthe participants in the program are learning andwhat is required for the careers they will be enter-ing, with a heavy emphasis on skills development.While the first three items provide the outcomemeasures of success of the program, the last twoitems can provide a source of data that indicateswhere the gaps in learning in the program mayoccur. The close ties that Stout has to those whoprovide careers to the students help Stout to focuson the content and skills that the students need.Tracking these key performance indices (KPIs)helps Stout to keep current with needed studentpreparation.

DePaul University, in a similar fashion, used theO*Net database to identify knowledge and skillsneeded for the types of jobs and careers targeted byDePaul’s programs. Surveys were sent to recentgraduates to determine the type of jobs graduatesheld. Respondents were also asked to rate “howimportant specific skills or knowledge were on thejob” and “how well DePaul prepared you to usethose skills or knowledge” (Thompson & Koys, 2010).Survey results helped the faculty team monitoringthe program to better align it to the needs of DePaulgraduates and the organizations hiring them. Sim-ilar information from surveys of the immediatesupervisors of DePaul graduates was used. In ad-dition, using the O*Net database compared tocareers that alumnus have or student aspired toprovided cogent direction for program improve-ment. The results indicated significant gaps in theskills DePaul was providing its students. The re-sultant increase in skill training has begun througha hybrid of traditional and PBL learning by in-dividual efforts, although a more comprehensiveapproach would lead to more significant improve-ments. Having a better understanding of the careerneeds of students through actual market assess-ment is important in exposing the need for PBL aswell as for providing a marker of its success.Examples such as these suggest rigorous pro-

gram assessments will often lead to a more bal-anced blend of knowledge delivery and skillsdevelopment, and this more balanced approachwill often entail greater use of PBL. These sorts ofassessments are exactly what the Association ofAmerican Colleges and Universities (AAC&U) isemphasizing in its more recent standards and whatare being reflected in the learning assessmenttrend that has gone on for the past decade. They arealso evident in the maturation of the assessmentapproach of AACSB and the Higher Learning Com-mission (HLC). These assessments also provide asource of information to further advance our knowl-edge of improving the efficacy of a PBL approach.Finally, they reflect a scholarly, evidence-based ap-proach to teaching that is focused on asking ques-tions to discover and apply new knowledge toadvance management education.

RESEARCH QUESTIONS TO ADVANCE PBL

We have provided a framework of some of the mostbasic issues involved in PBL and discussed theseissues drawing upon our personal experiences, theexperiences of others, and the literature on PBL.

2015 183Ungaretti, Thompson, Miller, and Peterson

While this may provide a useful starting point forinstructors seeking to employ PBL, we would like toidentify some of the more interesting questionsarising from our work for those who might be in-terested in advancing the research on PBL. Asstated above, we feel it is appropriate to move be-yond the question of whether PBL is effective, toinstead focus research on how to make PBL moreeffective. Below is a sampler of research questionsthat could advance that cause, organized using thethree major elements of our framework depicted inFigure 2:

Preparation

• Are overall learning outcomes better under se-quential or parallel delivery of content knowl-edge and PBL?

• What cultural shifts and high-level adminis-trative support are essential for effectiveimplementation of PBL?

• What skills are gained from broad-scaled PBLefforts that cannot be gained from more narrowefforts or cases?

• How steep are the faculty and student learningcurves for PBL? Can big gains in student andfaculty abilities come from even a limited use ofPBL and, if so, what is the tipping point wheregains occur?

Execution

• What elements of PBL’s value proposition aremost appealing when recruiting organizationsto participate?

• What level of commitment is required of theclient organization to be valuable to students’PBL experience? What are the critical roles re-quired of the champion from the client organi-zation to ensure student success?

• What are the most common points of failure indelivery of PBL?

• Howmuch time does it typically take to managePBL efforts of a given scale?

• What faculty and administration commitment isrequired to support PBL?

Assessment

• What is the valence and impact of facultyfeedback to students versus client feedback tostudents in PBL?

• In a multitrait, multimethod approach to assess-ing PBL, how correlated are evaluations by stu-dents, faculty, and outside participants?

• Are the assessments of student learning out-comes in PBL valid and reliable?

• Will recruiters pay higher starting salaries forstudents from programs emphasizing greaterskills development from pedagogies such asPBL?

These questions provide a glimpse of the richplatform that PBL offers management education toexplore, examine, and advance effective instruction.In closing, as Dierdorff, Nayden, Jain, and Jain

(2013) stated about graduate management educa-tion, but could apply to all management education,

Why would someone pursue graduate man-agement education?Whywould organizationsseek to hire those with graduate managementdegrees? What are the implications of gradu-ate management education for society atlarge? Such questions are fundamental to theultimate purpose of today’s schools of busi-ness (p. 24).

An effective management education includescontent and skill development. PBL provides anapproach that can effectively address the neededskills of graduates. We have presented how PBLhas been an effective approach for medical edu-cation. We shared its ability to address skillsdemanded of management graduates that cannotreadily be addressed through lecture and discus-sion and CBL.PBL is not without its issues. We have tried to

present seven critical challenges in the use of PBL.We have provided lessons learned and importantelements to consider when considering it. In addi-tion, we have considered the difficulty in assessingskill improvements in an individual and the need tohave better measures of overall program outcomesfor both content and skill measures. PBL is a greattool to enhance student learning and engagement. Itprovides another dimension to effective pedagogy. Itprovides skill development through interaction withreal problems that have no preestablished answers.PBL can be an effective approach to providinga competitive advantage to those institutions thatcare about the full development of their students.The importance of this higher level of knowing isreflected in the following quotes:

“Tell me and I forget, teach me and I may re-member, involve me and I learn.”

— Benjamin Franklin

“Any fool can know. The point is to understand.”—Albert Einstein

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Toni Ungaretti is director of the master’s of education in the health professions and assistantdean of assessment in the School of Education at Johns Hopkins University. Her researchinterests include educational partnerships, action learning, authentic assessment, and educa-tion for the professions.

Kenneth R. Thompson is professor of management at the Kellstadt Graduate School of Business,DePaul University. Thompson’s research focuses on the behavioral aspects of goal setting andemployee engagement. He coauthored It’s My Company Too! How Entangled Companies MoveBeyond Employee Engagement for Remarkable Results. (Tel.: 1-312 362 5211; e-mail: kthompso@depaul.edu).

Alex Miller is the Wm. B. Stokely chair of management at the University of Tennessee. Miller’sPhD was earned at the University of Washington. His current research focuses on nonprofitorganizations and he is the Pro2Serve Director of the Consortium for Social Enterprise.

Tim O. Peterson is professor of management in the College of Business at North Dakota StateUniversity. Peterson’s research interests include leadership, work life competencies, thescholarship of teaching, and the application of information technology to organizational issues.He earned his PhD from Texas A&M University in 1988.

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