Abstract:

Problem Based Learning (PBL) methodology was introduced for the first time in a Corrosion course from the Master of Chemical Engineering of the Universitat Politècnia de Valencia, Spain. Corrosion is a very practical course with a great number of problems which covers the following areas:
- Thermodynamics
- Kinetics
- Passivation
- Corrosion cells
- Corrosion protection techniques
- Strategies of design
- Electrochemical techniques to evaluate corrosion

Different problems involving all these concepts were designed and presented as primary learning methodology over the entire course. This work is focused on the design of a survey for the students in order to: first, know their opinion about the PBL methodology, indicating the advantages and main drawbacks of it and, second, know if this methodology motivates students to seek out a deeper understanding of concepts. This study presents the survey used to evaluate the PBL methodology used during the corrosion course and discuss the obtained results. It is important to point out that this was the first time that students face up to this kind of methodology in university but the general opinion about the methodology is very positive.

Acknowledgements:
Authors would like to express their gratitude to the project PIME: Aprendizaje Basado en Problemas para su aplicación en las áreas de Ingeniería Química y de Materiales (Ref. 27) and to the Instituto de Ciencias de la Educación and the Vicerrectorado de Estudios, Calidad y Acreditación from the Universitat Politècnica de Valencia, for their financial and technical support.

Keywords:

Problem-Based Learning, New teaching methodologies, active methodologies, evaluation.