An Exploratory Study: Problem Solving Process in a Problem/Project-Based Laboratory (PBLab) Course

Problem solving has become one of the interesting skills investigated by many researchers all around the world especially those who are involved in professional curricula. In Malaysia, the EAC (Engineering Accreditation Council) in its accreditation manual has established new and more specific programme outcomes for engineering programmes. In fact, four out of twelve programme outcomes listed in the manual are related to problem-solving skill. Realizing the importance of this skill among engineering graduates, several studies have indicated various teaching and learning approaches towards promoting it. Nevertheless there are still complaints from industry leaders concerning the lack in problem-solving skill among engineering graduates. The main aim of this study is to verify the existence of problem-solving process in the activities carried out in a Problem/Project-based Laboratory (PBLab) course offered by the Faculty of Electrical Engineering, Universiti Teknologi Malaysia. Twenty students and four different PBLab facilitators are involved in this study. The variations in the conduct of the PBLab course activities by different facilitators are also studied for identification purposes. Furthermore, this study is a qualitative case study research where the data has been collected using the observation field notes approach and has been thoroughly analysed using the thematic analysis technique. The findings have indicated the occurrence of problem-solving processes in the PBLab course through the activities conducted although there are variations when conducted by different facilitators.