Nursing Faculty Opinions about Problem Based Learning (PBL) Method

Background and Objectives: As a learning strategy, Problem Based Learning (PBL) offers the potential to bridge the theory – practice gap in professional practice, through the recognition and evaluation of practice – based problems. It is based on principles and cognitive psychology, it differs from the much criticized traditional methods of learning which are largely teacher centered. The study was carried out to determine the opinions of faculty teaching members in nursing schools about PBL method Methods and Materials: The descriptive study conducted throughout the period of 1st January till 28th March / 2013. Convenience sample of (68) faculty members were attained; almost of them were baccalaureate –as a trainers- and master in nursing, 82.4% of them were nursing faculty members and more than half of them (58.8%) had less than (6) years as a tenure in nursing schools. The sample was approximately equal distributed among the settings of the study (two nursing colleges and two nursing institutes). Anonymous questionnaire was structured depended on many previous related literatures, it consists of (46) items (Tutor-related=5, Student-related=12 and Design-related=29). Each item has five options (Strongly disagree=1 – Strongly agree=5). Validity of the instrument was checked by review of (5) experts in nursing, while reliability was measured through split-half technique (r=0.87). Results: The main results of the study were: low acceptable level of opinion about PBL method among faculty members, while the attributes of the sample didn't indicate any significant statistical differences. Conclusion: It concluded that nursing curriculums tend to be traditional method as lecture-based. Key words: Problem based Learning, Faculty Members, Nursing Schools, Opinion.