USING WIKI’S IN PROBLEM BASED LEARNING: E-LEARNER BEHAVIOUR AND ATTITUDE

Problem Based Learning (PBL) has been the primary method of curriculum delivery for the undergraduate occupational therapy curriculum since 1995. The introduction of blended learning has only emerged since 2008, creating an opportunity to explore the value of e-Learning tools within this method of curriculum delivery. The use of a wiki was considered to be the optimal method of collaborative content development to solve the problem objectives.

The 2009 second year occupational therapy students completed their physical internal performance component problem. Each group covered a different condition (rheumatoid arthritis, cerebrovascular accident, spinal cord injury and cerebral palsy), but will ultimately be required to understand the components related to all four conditions. Wiki’s, in the form of Google Docs, were introduced to the class as a collaboration tool. One document was created per group, with only group member and facilitator access. Students could access and edit the group document at any time throughout the problem, on or off site. Each group collaborated to produce a document through the wiki which covered the objectives of the problem. Final documents of all four groups were posted on WebCT for full class access.

Although class enthusiasm for the use of this tool was initially low, all groups produced a good quality documents that will support their learning of the course content. The student’s experiences, frustrations and perceived benefits are covered in the paper. Benefits to lecturers are noted and recommendations to the merits of incorporating this tool into PBL are explored.
These students progressed to 3rd year in 2010 and engaged in a paediatric development problem which used wiki’s within a Moodle based Virtual Learning Environment (VLE). The e-Learner behaviour and attitude after this problem was compared to their first experience. The results indicated that though technology was adapted to meet the needs described in the first experience the e-Learners did not use the wiki tool effectively, but rather developed the document in MS Word and then pasted it into the wiki. The wiki was valued as a method of disseminating content rather than as a collaborative learning experience.