Facilitation of web-based internet PBL: What is an adequate group size?
- Author:
Masayuki Niwa
;
Satoshi Yoshida
;
Kazuhiro Takamizawa
;
Satoshi Nagaoka
;
Nobumitsu Kawakubo
;
Yuzo Takahashi
;
Yasuyuki Suzuki
- Publication Type:Journal Article
- Keywords:
Web-based, PBL-tutorial;
master course;
facilitation;
education method;
group size
- From:International e-Journal of Science, Medicine and Education
2014;8(2):4-11
- CountryMalaysia
- Language:English
-
Abstract:
Background: Development in internet technology
enables e-learning at the higher education level. We have
developed the Internet PBL-Tutorial System/Rakuichi
that allows multi-directional communication among
participants with web-based bulletin boards. Although
this system has been successful in medical education at
the undergraduate level, we sought to encourage “readonly
members” to participate more fully in the program.
Methods: To this end, we compared the posting
frequency among three strategies: (1) students and
tutors had an off-site meeting to promote face-to-face
communication during the course, (2) several classes
were allowed to watch the discussion in other classes
in the second half of the course, (3) three classes (5 –
6 students each) in one topic were combined into one
class (16 students) in the second half.
Results: No meaningful effects were observed for
strategies (1) or (2). However, the posting frequency
increased 50 % for strategy (3).
Conclusion: Facilitation of communication among
participants was achieved by increasing the number
of student participants. We predicted that an optimal
number of students in each class in internet-based PBL
would be ~20 people.
- Full text:P020150528336949056922.pdf
