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Comment by g3f32r | Hacker News Reader

> students required more time studying, had worse exam scores and ordered more unnecessary tests compared to traditionally taught students.

While I didn't do any additional looking into it -- this is often my biggest gripe. Is the _goal_ to have better exam scores and require less time studying or is the goal to be a better problem-solver holistically?

When faced with a novel problem that neither the problem-based learning group nor the traditional schooling group - which performed better and by what metrics?

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It seems silly to say "This group who was instructed to rote memorize material could indeed perform better on a direct memory recall examination." and then close the door on problem-based learning.

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If you're doing a large-scale study, exam scores are basically the only way to get quantitative data.

And, exams aren't that bad! A well-designed exam can't be passed by merely recalling information, because it will give you novel problems that require reasoning with the material on a deeper level.

Also, explicit test prep—where you basically teach strategies for cheating the test—universally sucks, but presumably that's not what the study is measuring.

It seems to me that exam scores are a better metric of the underlying thing we care about, the ability to accomplish things in the world, than solution skill when faced with novel problems. Even if you're a very innovative person leading a project to do something entirely unprecedented, most of the tasks you need to do, text you need to read, etc. will not be novel.

I feel like many of the more alternative teaching methodologies have unclear learning goals. What is "holistic problem-solving"? How can we measure it? Do we know that conventionally taught students lack it? Is it hard to acquire? Is it even important?

When I first went into the workplace, it took me a bit of time to adjust to the non-academic setting. You think differently, you work differently. I discovered and learned problem-solving skills that I was not taught in school. Frankly, though, I'm glad I was not taught those skills in school, because they are easy to learn in the workplace, especially if you have a solid theoretical grounding (something which is a lot harder to pick up on the job).

To the extent that generalized problem-solving is a real thing, I think it probably boils down to the ability to quickly internalize information and draw connections, which conventional schooling already focuses on anyway.

I think one claim is that the pile of rote memorized info is a required basis for novel solutions.

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