Students in Early Childhood Teacher Education and Their First Experience with Problem-Based Learning

Abstract

This comparative study examines how students from Early Childhood Teacher Education in Kyrgyzstan and Norway value their first experience with Problem-Based Learning. The study is a result of the collaboration between ECTE in Kyrgyzstan and Norway focusing on student-active learning. The research is important because there are few if any studies focusing on PBL in Early Childhood Teacher Education (ECTE), and little use of PBL as a basic norm in Kyrgyzstan. Our data consists of students’ anonymous, written, open-ended questionnaires. These are analysed by means of qualitative content analysis. We found evidence that students value collaboration, and in this report, we describe their experiences with the PBL-method and suggest some implications for the quality of learning. We discuss and compare similarities and differences in students’ experiences in light of cultural differences.