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8 J. Prof. Legal Educ. 97 (1990)
Students and Problem-Based Learning: How Well Do They Fit in?

handle is hein.journals/proleged8 and id is 117 raw text is: Journal of Professional Legal Education vol. 8, no. 2 STUDENTS AND PROBLEM-BASED LEARNING: HOW WELL DO THEY FIT IN? Herman J.P. Nuy and Jos H.C. Moust Problem-based learning is widely known as an education system with potential to evoke learning processes of a high quality. Learning activities are organised around so called 'problem tasks' which are analysed by students in small group tutorials. This article analyses the intellectual challenges in problem-based learning with particular reference to the law program at Limburg University. The intellectual potential is one of the reasons problem-based learning is viewed as a promising model of educational innovation. It is however unrealistic to expect the potential to be automatically realized. Such realization is contingent upon, among other things the skills and motivations of the persons working with it. In this regard the student's study orientation plays an important role. Empirical research has led to consistent evidence about the ways in which students differ in this respect depending on their motivation and their concepts of what learning essentially is. This article presents findings following analysis of results of student interviews about their study processes in response to the 'learning objectives' stated in tutorial during problem task analysis. Although the findings focus on the teaching of substantive law in the primary years it is obvious that they bear more general significance with regard to adolescent or adult education. BACKGROUND The educational system at Limburg University (Maastricht, the Netherlands) has been built on principles of problem-based learning. The university is a very new one and started its existence in 1975 with the foundation of a Faculty of medicine. This offered a splendid opportunity for working out a really new concept of university education. The traditional forms of medical education are subject to criticism in many places over the world: the great distance between learning of theory and the functional demands of medical practice, the relative incapacity of students after years of university study to use their knowledge effectively in problem solving and to integrate the knowledge of different subject areas. And it is also recognised that the overwhelming growth of professional knowledge in the medical field, as in so many other knowledge areas, cannot be handled by filling up the heads of students with more and more subject matter; learning will be more effective when students are stimulated to develop a capacity for acquiring new knowledge by themselves by means of a powerful strategy for information processing and reasoning as an integrated part of their professional functioning. As the University at Maastricht expanded and more faculties started, the educational concept of problem-based learning extended to other fields of education. One of these fields was the teaching of Law which started in 1982. Many of the criticisms mentioned above in respect of the teaching of medicine apply also to legal education. Dutch law is to a great extent based on codification. Legal knowledge

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