Teachers' Perspectives of their roles and student autonomy in a PBL context in China

The traditional role of the teacher confronts many challenges by an
increasing number of educational initiatives that highlight student-centered
learning in China, since the teacher’s role is in great need of transformation
from instructor to facilitator. Therefore, it is quite necessary to examine how
teachers perceive their role within a context in the process of making
educational innovations. This study relies on two Chinese universities which
are changing their educational approach from lecture-based learning to
Problem Based Learning (PBL). We examine how the teachers perceive their
role in a PBL context. In particular, we are mainly concerned with teachers’
attitudes towards student learning autonomy in PBL contexts. The data is
mainly relied upon in-depth interviews of the teachers who participate in PBL
practice from the two cases. When focusing on how teachers perceive student
learning autonomy, we can note three major patterns. In general, Chinese
teachers have a tendency to maintain high interference in student learning
process even though they admit the value of giving student learning
autonomy. This study further indicates a dilemma between teachers’ intention
to encourage students to learn on their own and their tendency to maintain
their directive role in the educational processes.