Hi, I guess I could chip in too. Let me know if there's anything I can do.

Kal Winston

PBL Director / English Professor
Ross University School of Medicine
Dominica
1 767 255 6311


-----Original Message-----
From: Problem Based Learning [mailto:[log in to unmask]]On Behalf Of
Mark Newman
Sent: Friday, January 14, 2005 7:29 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Proposal for Systematic review of the effectiveness of Problem
Based Learning


Dear colleagues

Along with colleagues who completed the Pilot Systematic review of the
Effectiveness of Problem Based Learning I am planning to submit an
application for funding for a full systematic review in response to the
recent call for proposals by the English Higher Education Academy
http://www.heacademy.ac.uk/researchprojects.htm.

We have only just found out about this call and the deadline for expressions
of interest is 21/01/05.  As a group we are keen to expand the number of
people in the field interested  and involved in a systematic reviews of this
kind and in particular to involve people from disciplines other than the
health sciences where quite a few of us teach and research at present.  We
will be working on the expression of interest over the next few days but as
things stand the parameters that are pretty much set so far are 

1) proposal will be full review of the effectiveness of PBL in HE/
professional Education
2) protocol will basically be that which we used in the pilot review - up
dated and modified a) for a full systematic review b) in the light of our
experience with review 1 c) to fit the EPPI Centre SR approach 
A copy of the protocol for the pilot review can be found in the report at
http://www.ltsn-01.ac.uk/resources/features/pbl
 
3) This will be an EPPI Centre Systematic Review - There are two stages to
the review process. First is a descriptive map of all studies which meet the
initial inclusion criteria. Second is and 'in-depth review' of subset of
these studies focussing on one particular aspect.  Given the funding
limitations. We may just do a one stage in depth review.  The data
extraction tools are all in a web based on line system 

You can see examples of reviews on the EPPI website.
http://eppi.ioe.ac.uk/EPPIWeb/home.aspx?page=/reel/intro.htm.  I would look
at the various Reviews  of English teaching as these tend to be
effectiveness questions. 

4) Using the review process as a structure I imagine the workload will be
divided along the following lines 

1) modification of Protocol - MN lead (EPPI) 
2) Searching (EPPI) 
3) Screening for inclusion (EPPI plus at least one other) 
4)  Data Extraction  (ALL) 
5) Report Writing (EPPI lead) 
6) Publication (Copy editing, Editorial, Publication on website - Press
release (EPPI)
7) Information management (EPPI)
8) Quality Assurance processes (All -plus EPPI)

5) There is not much money available - the HEA say £25,000 but confusingly
say exceptional cases up to £50k would be available. The EPPI centre
estimates that a full SR carried out in house should be costed at between
60-80k. Based on the division of labour envisioned above the largest share
of the funding would go to the EPPI Centre with other participants receiving
perhaps a nominal amount but essentially arguing that they would be making
an additional contribution in kind.  Participants would however gain
experience and training in systematic reviewing, would certainly increase
their knowledge of the PBL literature and based on our experience with the
pilot review publications will attract a lot of international interest.  

If you would be interested in participating in some way with this review
please get in touch with me ASAP. 

regards 

Mark 

  





Mark Newman
Evidence for Policy and Practice Information and Coordinating Centre (EPPI-
Centre)
Social Science Research Unit (SSRU)
Institute of Education
University of London
18 Woburn Square
London WC1H 0NR

Tel: +44 (0) 207 612 6575
Fax: +44 (0) 207 612 6400