CONTENT ACQUISITION IN PROBLEM-BASED LEARNING - DEPTH VERSUS BREADTH IN AMERICAN-STUDIES

A continuing barrier to the implementation of curriculum fostering hig her order thinking skills is the perception that use of these programs inevitably results in lower levels of content acquisition. This assum ption was challenged in the current study, which compared high school students' scores on a multiple-choice standardized test after traditio nal or experimental instruction. Students in the experimental classroo m were instructed by using an approach called problem-based learning w here an ill-structured problem initiates learning and the teacher serv es as a coach instead of an information repository. Results indicate t hat students in the experimental class did not sacrifice content acqui sition when compared to students learning in more traditional settings . Implications regarding the breadth-versus-depth debate are discussed along with questions of research methodology in this area.