Implementation of a Inter-Departmental Core Curriculum “Problem-Based Learning (PBL)” in the Faculty of Engineering at Utsunomiya University

Abstract

The present paper describes a core curriculum “Problem-Based Learning (PBL)” in the Faculty of Engineering at Utsunomiya University. The PBL is implemented to the first-grade students as an introductory engineering education, where student teams of four or five people assigned inter-departmentally attempt to solve the given problems. In order to verify effectiveness of the curriculum, some questionnaire surveys have been carried out for seven years to the students, and the results were statistically analyzed using the Mann-Whitney U test and the Spearman′s rank correlation technique. As a result, effectiveness of the curriculum were confirmed as a creativity education.