Abstract:

The Bologna declaration to adapt universities in Spain to European guidelines has prompted more formal changes in Spanish University design (e.g. European Credit Transfer Systems, ECTS) than in its philosophy (e.g. to promote students` skills of searching and managing information and solving problems in specific domains) which still requires a deeper renovation.
The philosophy inherent of Bologna declaration claims the teaching-learning methodologies´ adaptation to the new demands. Institutions but also university teachers are responsible for the promotion of new teaching-learning methodologies in the higher education; therefore we have introduced Problem-based Learning (PBL) in higher education and evaluated PBL consequences in comparison with more traditional methodologies considering students satisfaction and perceptions of competences acquisition and homework load.
In order to carry out our study, the PBL methodology was used in the teaching of one subject (i.e. Developmental psychology) of two Degrees during a semester, whereas the rest of the subjects followed more traditional methodologies. Thus, first course students of Social and Pre-Primary Education Degrees of the University of Valladolid (N = 124) are participating.
PBL methodology clearly illustrates the university´s innovative character and also guarantees the consecution of the subject´ specific competences. This methodology has known advantages in the acquisition of competences as for example critical thinking, self-efficacy perceptions, intrinsic motivation, metacognitive self-regulation and, general skills related to professional performance.
The phases followed in this methodology were: 1) presentation of the PBL methodology, 2) training in this methodology, showing the different roles as a group member; 3) PBL start up: Developmental Psychology subject has five lessons and three weeks to develop each one; so, each week: teacher presents the theoretical background and describes a problem in the first hour and, groups of students have two hours to solve that problem; in the last week, groups presented their results to classmates. In sum, it consists of three hours of theoretical presentation by the teacher and 6 hours of group work to solve the problem. As individual tasks they must also search for information about the suggested problem.
Students’ perceptions of homework regarding learning-teaching methodologies used in each subject and the level of competences acquisition per subject, and their satisfaction with the methodology of each subject were here evaluated with diverse kind of assessments and in different moments. Every week, students delivered through Moodle a scale about the homework load -hours dedicated to the five subjects of their first Degree regarding hours dedicated to personal studying, group meetings, data searching, tutorial sessions, etc-. Every three weeks, group coordinators delivered performance assessments of each group member and their group evaluation of other groups presentations (it was also evaluated by teacher). Moreover, their satisfaction and perceptions of competences acquisition and methodologies´ efficacy used in each subject were individually evaluated at the last of the semester.
It is expected that students inform of more homework load perception, higher level of competences acquisition and satisfaction in the subject developing PBL methodology. The implications in the higher education teaching will be discussed.

Keywords:

Homework, load, competences, acquisition, teaching, learning, methodologies.