Effects of Problem-based Learning in Business Education : A Comparison between a PBL and a Conventional Educational Approach

Over the past decade, business schools have been increasingly criticized for being too theoretical, too specialized, not internationally oriented and not engaged in developing the necessary expert knowledge in students (gijselaers & woltjer, 1998). In the workplace of the current “age of mind” (todd, 1999), knowledge is a valuable asset of the contemporary organization. In order to be successful in the current dynamic and competitive environment, the use of existing knowledge and the development of new knowledge becomes a prominent prerequisite for solving the complex problems faced today. In view of these developments, the question that needs to be asked is: “what qualities must graduates of business education possess?” many answers to this question have been formulated in the literature. These share a common view. Society demands graduates who are capable of efficiently resolving complex problems (engel, 1997; poikela & poikela, 1997; segers, 1997).keywordsacademic medicineknowledge testcritical success factorbusiness educationknowledge applicationthese keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.