Evolution of Biomedical Engineering Students’ Perceptions of Problem Solving and Instruction Strategies During a Challenge-Based Instruction Course

Collaborative teams of engineers and learning scientists have developed challengebased instruction modules for a number of Biomedical Engineering (BME) courses, ranging from optics to microbiology, biotransport, and biomechanics. One key piece of anecdotal evidence employed to block the development and implementation of additional challenge-based courses is students’ resistance to the new and/or unfamiliar pedagogy. We addressed this common narrative by assessing students’ opinions toward both completing open-ended challenge problems and the components of a self-determined ideal biomedical engineering course at regular intervals during a challenge-based biotransport course. Two biotransport courses were studied (29 and 21 students), where the first author conducted and analyzed all observation and survey data and the second author was the course instructor. Taught by the same instructor, one session was offered as an accelerated study-abroad experience, and one was offered on-campus during a standard semester. Observation of student engagement, as a function of student and professor activity, revealed that aspects of the challenge-based instruction model (i.e. challenge solving, group work) significantly enhanced student engagement in the class. Students demonstrated concurrent development of content expertise and innovative problem solving ability during the course. Before, during, and after the challenge-based instruction course, students identified that the open-ended challenges characteristic of the instruction model were motivating, engaging, and interesting. Students also consistently preferred homework and examination problems derived from real world examples that require creativity and are solved collaboratively within teams. Our results, which emerged from a novel student-centered, instruction-sensitive survey instrument, affirm that students prefer challenge-based instruction to lecture pedagogy. From the perspective of education policy, we believe these results support the increased incorporation of challenge-based modules in new and evolving biomedical engineering classes.