AN ANALYSIS OF PROGRESS TEST-RESULTS OF PBL AND NON-PBL STUDENTS

This study compares the academic achievement of students from two Dutc h medical schools, one employing problem-based learning (PBL) and one non-PBL methods. Two progress tests were administered to 1904 PBL stud ents and 1089 nan-PBL students. No systematic differences were found o n total rest scores. After the test toes split into three categories ( basic, clinical and social sciences), a few, non-systematic difference s were found. To some extent the basic sciences favoured the non-PBL c urriculum and the social sciences the PBL curriculum, but this was not consistent for both test administrations. Also, the profiles for bath schools at the level of disciplines show remarkable resemblances. Onl y at the level of individual questions could differences between PBL a nd lon-PBL be demonstrated The results obtained in this study strongly agree with those of previous comparisons between medical schools but indicate that effects of PBL and non-PBL instructional methods on medi cal factual knowledge are even more similar than we had previously tho ught.