Discussion
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EVENTS
Shortly before the COVID-19 pandemic outbreak, we investigated whether the first of two PbL meetings could be realised by means of blended learning, i.e. in our study as an internet chat instead of on-site. We found that this bPbL approach was feasible and did not differ from cPbL in terms of student evaluation, additional learning time and exam results. However, there was an effect on attending lectures on site or watching lecture videos. As expected, group interviews revealed that advantages of blended PbL are mainly seen in the free choice of location and time savings. However, there are also interesting differences between the assessments by bPbL and cPbL students.According to Verstegen et al., e-learning approaches in PbL can be used to support contextual learning and/or collaborative learning (Verstegen et al. Compared to the cPbL students, relatively more students in the bPbL groups stated that they had not attended a single lecture on site. This was not necessarily to be expected, as the second PbL meeting, which was held on site for everyone, was immediately preceded by a lecture as part of the course, and events from other courses were also held on site. It is also interesting to note that participants in the conventional PbL were less likely to watch lecture videos, although the advantages were the same (e.g. timing at will, interruption possible at any time, repeated viewing possible). It is tempting to speculate that it was the blended PbL approach that first drew students’ attention to the benefits of further e-learning offers.The results from the group interviews show that limitations in communicating and the lack of personal contact are seen as major shortcomings of our blended PbL approach. Furthermore, there were fears that the learning effect would be lower. However, this disadvantage does not seem to be serious, as shown by the non-different exam results on the one hand and the comparable satisfaction with the course on the other. Although the frequency of statements made in interviews should be interpreted cautiously, it is noticeable that students who had not participated in blended PbL themselves expressed concerns more frequently with regard to the lack of personal contact. That bPbL students raised this concern less often indicates that this disadvantage, too, was actually rather not that serious. On the other hand, bPbL students obviously experienced drawbacks that cPbL students tended not to be concerned about. For example, some bPbL students found communication via chat rather time-consuming and pointed out more often that statements in chat can be repetitive. In summary, our interview data largely confirms the evaluation data. Mostly similar advantages and disadvantages were expected or observed from cPbL or bPbL students, which fits with the similar attitude towards CbL in the evaluation. The fact that students who participated in blended PbL did not describe any serious disadvantages in the interviews fits with the similar course satisfaction in the evaluation by cPbL and bPbL students.Using e-learning approaches for PbL is not new (Bridges et al. 