Three Challenges for New Students Facing Problem-Based and Interdisciplinary Learning

This chapter explores three distinct challenges new students face when entering a PBL and interdisciplinary university education. The first challenge concerns how students handle the uncertainties and epistemological conflicts that are embedded in their work towards defining interdisciplinary problems as part of their problem-based projects. The second challenge pertains to the fact that supervisors are often themselves educated in a mono-disciplinary context and are equally uncertain about interdisciplinary problems, as they cannot predict or point towards relevant knowledge until the problem is encapsulated and defined. Thus, students need to come to terms with the role of the supervisor as radically different to that of a classroom teacher who is expected to have the correct answer. The final challenge arises from the students’ needs to develop competencies for communication and collaboration at the intersection of disciplines. Being successful in these competencies require dialogue, creativity and feedback among group members in order for the group to maintain and profit from the reflective processes that are necessary to handle participatory and interdisciplinary learning processes. The final part of the chapter discusses these challenges and identifies students’ comprehension of the theory of science and scientific methods, as well as their understanding of reflective practices as the key to successful interdisciplinary PBL for new students in higher education.