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Vol. 4, No. 1, 2021, pp. 74-86  74 

        10.12928/eltej.v4i1.3748                           http://journal2.uad.ac.id/index.php/eltej/index              eltej@pbi.uad.ac.id 

Views of Turkish EFL teacher trainees toward technology-

integrated PBL practices 

Yasemin Kırkgöz     a,1,*, Burcu Turhan     b,2 

a Çukurova University, Balcalı, Çukurova Üniversitesi Rektörlüğü, 01330 Sarıçam/Adana, Turkey  
b Hatay Mustafa Kemal University, Alahan, Hatay Cd. Tayfur Sökmen Kampüsü, 31060 Alahan-Antakya/Antakya/Hatay, Turkey 
1 ykirkgoz@gmail.com *; 2 burcu.oyp@gmail.com  

* corresponding author 

 

A R T I C L E  I N F O 

 

ABST RACT  

 

 

Article history 

Received 24 February 2021 

Revised 31 March 2021 

Accepted 20 April 2021 

 Problem-Based Learning (PBL) is increasingly becoming popular in 
teacher education, just like the prevalence in the use of Modular Object 
Oriented Dynamic Learning Environment (Moodle) which is an 
instructional socio-constructivist online tool providing collaborative 
learning. PBL where learning occurs through real-life problem solving 
practices is also included in the constructivist approach. This study was 
designed as a mixed methods research in which English as Foreign 
Language (EFL) teacher trainees were involved in PBL through Moodle 
with the aim of solving problems related to language teaching and 
learning which they encountered at practicum schools. Participants were 
93 EFL teacher trainees studying at a state university in Turkey. The 
study aimed to reveal the participants’ views of their PBL experiences 
within the scope of a Materials Evaluation and Adaptation Course. Data 
were collected through questionnaires and interviews; and analyzed 
through descriptive statistics and content analysis consecutively. Results 
demonstrated that the teacher training activities delivered through PBL 
yielded promising benefits for EFL teacher trainees’ professional 
development despite some minor flaws faced in the process. Thus, PBL 
can be considered as a useful method to deliver such courses offered in 
any branches of teacher education.  

 

This is an open access article under the CC–BY-SA license. 

    

 

 

Keywords 

problem-based learning  

teacher education  

teacher trainees  

 

 

 

How to Cite: Kırkgöz, Y., & Turhan, B. (2021). Views of Turkish EFL teacher trainees toward technology-
integrated PBL practices. English Language Teaching Educational Journal, 4(1), 74-86. 
10.12928/eltej.v4i1.3748 

1. Introduction 

PBL was originally developed to promote competencies of medical students in clinical problem-
solving (Barrows, 1983). In a more recent study with medical students, Stentoft (2019) showed that 
PBL improved students’ competencies in medical research. Following advances in medical education, 
other professional fields have adopted PBL such as engineering education (e.g. Woods, 2021), 
business education (e.g. Buff, 2011), nursing education (e.g. Oja, 2011) and health education (e.g. 
Chagas, Faria, Mourato, Pereira & Santos, 2012), and so on. Over time, PBL has proved to be an 
effective instructional approach in teacher education (Kırkgöz, 2015; 2017; 2018). Edwards and 
Hammer (2006) state that teacher education is a field of training especially suited to educational 
objectives and techniques required in PBL. In their study, real-life problems for prospective early 
childhood and primary teachers were utilized, and factors creating a gap between theory and practice 
as well as possible solutions were investigated. Findings revealed that PBL can be implemented as a 
pedagogical adult teaching tool. In Kırkgöz’s (2015) case study with prospective English teachers, the 

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Kırkgöz & Turhan (Views of Turkish EFL teacher trainees toward technology-integrated PBL practices) 

most eye-catching benefit is that PBL closes the gap between theory and practice; and this in turn 
fosters prospective teachers’ ability to identify real problems, generate solutions and use both 
theoretical and practical resources to support the solution. Avcı, Akıncı and Bakioğlu (2012) used 
real-life problem scenarios for developing prospective teachers’ classroom management skills in their 
research and suggested that PBL was more efficient than other traditional methods. Reviewing other 
work on PBL (e.g. Borhan, 2014), it can be concluded that PBL experience within teacher education 
caters to opportunities for prospective teachers in terms of acquiring knowledge and skills through 
experiencing real-life problems.  

In PBL, students work in groups to find solutions to complex problems (Ferreira & Trudel, 2012). 
The group members generally share a common goal, feel supported by their peers, value their learning, 
become more competent, and they are more successful to cope with learning challenges (Tan, Van der 
Molen & Schmidt, 2016). Furthermore, studies reveal that PBL has the potential to improve higher-
order thinking skills, comprehension and application of knowledge along with learning attitudes and 
motivation (Jerzembek & Murphy, 2013). To achieve all these, students’ ability to be self-directed in 
their learning is a pre-requisite for PBL, and teachers should ensure that students have this ability at 
an optimal level. If teachers and students are too novice to deal with responsibilities of such a learning 
environment, they may need to adjust their current learning styles/strategies (English & Kitsantas, 
2013).  

There are a great number of studies regarding PBL and students’ learning outcomes. Walker et al. 
(2011) found that classroom teachers from rural school districts, who designed PBL activities in a 
professional development program, reported gains in terms of their knowledge, experience and 
confidence. In Pecore’s (2013) case study concerning a week-long PBL professional development of 
two experienced and two novice high school teachers, teachers’ level of beliefs in constructivist 
principles prior to attending the study impacted their extent of employing these principles to their PBL 
experiences. In a quantitative study by Wijnen et al. (2017), law teachers who had undergone a five-
day professional development program pointed out that students learned more through the traditional 
teaching method and expressed dissatisfaction with PBL.  

Regardless of its prevalence and benefits, framing effective PBL problems may be time-consuming 
and requires intensive research (Ribeiro, 2011). Relatedly, this can create stress on teachers and cause 
their motivation toward teaching through PBL to decrease. Besides, developing students’ self-directed 
learning skills (Hung, 2011) and classroom management (Ribeiro, 2011) can be challenging issues in 
PBL. In order to minimize those disadvantages, combining Moodle with face-to-face meetings during 
PBL practices may be logical since Moodle allows learners to use various interactive module activities 
such as assignments, chat, exam, forum, survey, quiz, wiki and so on. Zainuddin, Idrus and Jamal 
(2016) proposed that postgraduate Malaysian students prefer to use news, forum and assignment tools 
of Moodle, the most. In Paschalis’s (2017) study including collaborative project-based learning via 
Moodle at the department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, results indicate such benefits as a 
better level of collaboration, cognitive performance of Greek students and guidance role of teachers. 
Likewise, Alario-Hoyos et al. (2015) found that Spanish students’ grades and motivation in the 
Introduction to Computer Networks course improved significantly in the collaborative distance 
learning environment compared to face–to–face instructions. In that sense, PBL and Moodle seem to 
be consistent in terms of enhancing both collaboration and learning gains.  

For higher education, the meta-synthesis of the meta-analytical research on the effectiveness of 
PBL put emphasis on the fact that PBL is more effective than lecture-based instruction regarding long-
term retention and skills development (Strobel & Barneveld, 2009). For this reason, PBL-oriented 
teacher education practices should be added into the curricula of foreign language teacher education 
programs so that teacher trainees could gain sustainable knowledge and skills in their profession. 
Besides, it is crucial to integrate online learning/teaching environments like Moodle into PBL-led 
teacher education practices so that teacher educators and trainees could benefit from activities of 
teacher training combining PBL and Moodle because professional development is critical for teachers 
adopting new roles and competencies in online teaching environments (Adnan, 2017). In light of these, 
the motive of this study is the belief that incorporating PBL in a teacher education course could give 
teacher trainees an idea on how to teach a lesson through PBL and Moodle. Hence, this study 
contributes to the relevant literature on the use of PBL in teacher education and the reactions of teacher 
trainees to the practices conducted through PBL. Accordingly, the study revolves around this research 



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Kırkgöz & Turhan (Views of Turkish EFL teacher trainees toward technology-integrated PBL practices) 

question: What are the views of Turkish EFL teacher trainees about technology-integrated PBL 
practices? 

2. Method 

2.1. Research Design  

This mixed methods study was conducted in the “Materials Evaluation and Adaptation Course” 
offered in the last year of study in an English language teacher education program in Turkey. EFL 
teacher trainees took the course during 14 weeks, when they concurrently participated in real teaching 
experiences in practicum schools. In the first three weeks, they were provided with theoretical 
knowledge on evaluation/adaptation of language teaching materials through teacher-led lectures 
accompanied by some practical experiences in materials evaluation. In the following weeks, an online 
PBL application through Moodle was fulfilled. The use of Moodle was assumed to be fruitful because 
it could make the course more interactive which would provide the trainees with the ability to 
communicate at any time and place. In practical terms, Moodle was the learning management system 
which both the tutor and the trainees had experience in using. Participants worked in groups of four 
during the process. Trainee groups were self-selected providing 23 groups of four and one group of 
five, each of which worked on two different problems throughout the whole process. Two of the 
sample problems undertaken by the trainees are outlined below: 

“During our observations, we noticed that the high school students who had 
elementary proficiency level in English were having difficulties understanding what 
to do in a variety of activities in the English textbook used in the lesson. They were 
complaining that they could not understand the instructions. So we decided to take 
a closer look. Instructions were highly complicated for an elementary level class. 
Some of them were also not clear. We want to focus on this problem and offer some 
solutions.”  

“From our observation of the students in the secondary school Class 6/A, we 
realized that students were having a hard time using grammar correctly even though 
they had just learned it. We thought that it was about the lack of exercises. But when 
we took a closer look, we concluded that there were not any practice stage exercises 
in the English textbook. The book lacked the practice stage of the learning 
methodology and went straight into the production stage. Thus, the students had 
trouble making sentences. We would like to focus on solving this problem and with 
our group members prepare some communicative grammar practicing activities 
and observe their effect on the students’ using grammar communicatively.” 

First, participants were informed about the steps that they should take weekly. Each group 
brainstormed about the identified problem related to language teaching materials which they identified 
through their observation in schools, and prepared a report about the generating issues such as new 
concepts, ideas and resources on the way to solving the problem at hand. Afterwards, group members 
constructed tentative solutions collaboratively. The solutions were shared and discussed via forums 
available in Moodle so that all trainees could gain insights on each other’s work and give feedback. 
This was followed by the employment of research to collect and analyse data. After discussing 
research findings, each group implemented their solutions to real problems in practicum schools. 
Within this period, the tutor, the first author of this study, continued to give ongoing feedback to the 
participants via Moodle. At the end, groups wrote their PBL practices and presented them to their 
peers. Namely, the process was experienced through textual communication via Moodle in an 
asynchronous way. That is, participants and the tutor had the chance to interact at different times when 
it best suited the schedules of both the tutor and the participants.  

Before the current study, a face-to-face PBL course was offered in the previous year following the 
steps outlined above (See Kırkgöz, 2015 for details). After the successful implementation of PBL in 
that course, this study was implemented integrating technology so that the course could be more 
effective. In fact, what makes this study different is that all aforementioned processes were followed 
through Moodle as an online learning tool and a teaching platform used subsequent to a few face-to-
face meetings at the outset. To summarize, the ultimate aim was to improve the efficacy of the course 
through PBL rather than learning how to apply PBL in language teaching. For the related literature, 



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Kırkgöz & Turhan (Views of Turkish EFL teacher trainees toward technology-integrated PBL practices) 

the study is assumed to open a new road to understanding how PBL-led teacher education courses 
increases the opportunities to make real-life-like learning practices.  

2.2. Participants 

Participants of the study comprised 93 EFL teacher trainees (22 males, 71 females) at a state 
university in Turkey. Their ages ranged from 21 to 24. All were senior students and completed 
methodology courses such as Teaching English to Young Learners, Approaches in Language 
Teaching, Teaching Language Skills and so on. The rationale for involving those students was that 
they had sufficient knowledge in language teaching methodologies. Thus, they would be able to 
become familiar with PBL more professionally although they did not have any PBL experience 
beforehand. They just knew the theory and steps of PBL and were expected to put their theoretical 
knowledge into practice. In fact, all the trainees who were enrolled in the Materials Evaluation and 
Adaptation course at the time of the study gave consent for the participation in the research. For ethical 
considerations, participants were announced that they would be involved in a scientific study and 
informed of the study procedures and what they were expected to perform during the study.   

2.3. Data Collection Tools 

The data were gathered through a written questionnaire composed of 6-point Likert-type questions 
from strongly disagree (1) to strongly agree (6) and interviews. There were 29 Likert-type questions 
categorized under three sub-sections. Section A (14 questions) investigated participants’ opinions 
about PBL in general. Section B (12 questions) aimed to find out benefits of participating in a PBL-
led course. Section C (3 questions) covered participants’ responses to the question “Why should PBL 
be a part of other courses?” Regarding interviews, there were 10 questions associated with feelings 
toward PBL (e.g. How do you feel about being a part of such PBL practices?), knowledge/skills gained 
during this process (e.g. Do you believe that you have gained any skills or knowledge as a result of 
such PBL practices?), difficulties encountered (e.g. Are there any challenges you have experienced 
during the PBL practices? If yes, what are those challenges?), and the use of Moodle (e.g. Are there 
any advantages or disadvantages of using Moodle during the PBL practices?). Questionnaire items 
and interview questions were formulated in the light of the relevant literature (See Kırkgöz, 2017). A 
small-scale piloting was conducted to check the appropriateness and understandability of the interview 
questions. To ensure reliability of the quantitative data, questionnaire items were exposed to a 
reliability test via SPSS and Cronbach’s Alpha Coefficient was found to be .90, indicating that all 
items yielded reliable results. 

2.4. Data Analysis Techniques  

As the data collection tools provided quantitative and qualitative data, both statistical and content 
analysis techniques were employed. For the analysis of quantitative data emerging from Likert-type 
questions ranging from 1(strongly disagree) to 5(strongly agree), descriptive statistics such as mean 
and standard deviations (SD) were utilized. The qualitative data obtained from audio-recorded 
interviews were transcribed verbatim and analysed through content analysis performed by the authors 
of this study. The qualitative data analysis continued with the division of the text into segments of 
information which were labelled with appropriate codes for the sake of data reduction; and the 
determined codes were collapsed into themes (Creswell, 2012). Both researchers analyzed the whole 
qualitative data individually to unravel relevant themes inductively through repeated examination and 
comparison of the raw data. Afterwards, ambiguous categories were clarified through joint discussion 
for the sake of inter-rater reliability. Each participant was coded as “P1, P2, and P3…”  

3. Findings and Discussion 

3.1. Results from the Close-ended Questions 

The results concerning general opinions about the PBL practices are presented in Table 1. 

  

 

 



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Kırkgöz & Turhan (Views of Turkish EFL teacher trainees toward technology-integrated PBL practices) 

Table 1.  Opinions in Relation to PBL in General 

Section A  Mean  SD 

A4. The PBL project enabled me to develop a deeper understanding of the topic I studied.  4.44 1.80 

A12. Focusing on real problems made the PBL course more relevant to my interests.  4.39 1.66 

A6. The PBL project was helpful. 4.36 1.74 

A10. PBL was a very helpful learning experience for my future work in research and teaching 

profession. 

4.31 1.78 

A8. With this PBL project, I learned more information about my research topic since it is more 

real-life related.  

4.35 1.76 

A11. PBL gave me a real world experience.  4.35 1.69 

A5. I liked doing research in a structured manner during the PBL course.  4.32 1.55 

A14. I learned from each other via Moodle during group works.  4.27 1.62 

A3. The PBL course provided peer and group interactions useful to me in completing the tasks. 4.22 1.85 

A9. I learned greater understanding and experience with group interactions in Moodle.  4.12 1.70 

A2. The PBL course required more effort on my part than other courses.  4.07 1.54 

A13. I found the PBL course via Moodle interesting. 4.03 1.58 

A1. The PBL course required more of my time than the other courses.  4.04 1.42 

A7. The PBL course was frustrating.  3.25 1.77 

As can be inferred from Table 1, most of the items had similar mean scores except for Item 7 which 
had the lowest mean score indicating that the majority of the participants were of the opinion that PBL 
was not frustrating; rather, it was helpful, especially for their profession and future work in research. 
With regard to other items in Section A, they had an average mean score out of 6 because all items 
except for Item 7 had mean scores between 4.03 and 4.44. That is, most of the participants agreed 
moderately or slightly with the items. In other words, they had positive opinions about PBL in general. 
For instance, they believed that PBL was beneficial for group interactions as it enabled them to make 
structured research and develop deeper understanding. This might be because PBL was found to be 
real-life related. Moreover, most of the participants thought that PBL was relevant to their interest and 
via Moodle, it was even more interesting. Despite these, a great deal of participants supported the idea 
that PBL required more time and effort. Additionally, benefits of PBL were investigated, and results 
are shown in Table 2. 

Table 2.  Benefits of PBL 

Section B  Mean SD 

B3. I improved critical and analytical thinking skills thanks to PBL. 5.32 0.82 

B11. I improved research skills during the PBL course. 5.31 0.87 

B12. I learned how to analyze and organize information collected from various sources during 

the PBL course.  

5.37 0.88 

B5. PBL helped me think deeper about the topic I studied.  5.27 0.93 

B2. I learned how to apply information to solve a real world problem about teaching English. 5.22 0.87 

B4. I improved to think independently during the PBL course. 5.20 0.89 

B6. I improved self-learning during the PBL course.       5.18 1.05 

B7. I learned how to cooperate with friends via Moodle.  5.13 1.13 

B10. I improved academic skills (project writing, reading, etc.) during the PBL course.  5.13 0.97 

B1. I improved identifying realistic problems relevant to my teaching.  5.10 0.86 

B8. I improved communication skills in general. 4.94 1.06 

B9. I improved how to resolve disagreements in the group and reach consensus.  4.88 1.22 

Based on Table 2, it is clear that the most remarkable items which have the highest mean scores 
are B2, B3, B5, B11 and B12, demonstrated that participants believed that PBL was beneficial mainly 
because it provided them the opportunity to apply knowledge, to improve thinking and research skills 
and to analyse or organize information. Concerning the lowest mean scores which belong to the items 



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Kırkgöz & Turhan (Views of Turkish EFL teacher trainees toward technology-integrated PBL practices) 

B8 and B9, benefits such as improvement of communication and teamwork skills might not be as 
significant as other benefits mentioned above. Yet, all of the mean scores can be accepted as 
considerably high; thereof, a great deal of participants were in consensus on the benefits of PBL in 
identifying and solving real problems; improving thinking, teamwork and self-learning skills, 
communication and academic skills and so forth. 

Lastly, Table 3 displays participants’ views on whether PBL should be a part of other courses.   

Table 3.  Responses to the Question “Why should PBL be a part of other courses?” 

Section C  Mean  SD 

C1. It definitely helps with getting out of midterm and final exams and follow different ways 

of learning. 

5.04 0.94 

C2. With more real-life related PBL experiences, we as students can learn more and relate it 

to our own life experiences. 

5.19 0.92 

C3. It helps us to use in-class information we learn outside of class.  5.37 0.89 

According to Table 3, most of the participants were of the opinion that PBL could be a part of other 
courses because it required them to follow different ways of learning such as establishing relations to 
one’s own life or making use of information in real life. That is, PBL could be beneficial in terms of 
making content more real-life like and concrete. Participants also believed that PBL helped them get 
rid of standard evaluation techniques such as mid-term and final examinations, which possibly create 
anxiety. 

Table 4 sheds light on the overall results for each section in the questionnaire. 

Table 4.  Total Results of Sections in the Questionnaire 

Total Results  Mean  SD 

Section A (PBL in general) 4.15 1.32 

Section B (Benefits of participating in PBL) 5.17 0.71 

Section C (Should PBL be a part of other courses?) 5.20 0.78 

Overall   4.70 0.71 

Table 4 shows that Section B and C have approximately the same mean and standard deviation 
scores, which means participants mostly agreed with items in those sections. To clarify, they generally 
had the opinion that being a part of a PBL practice enabled them to gain various benefits; for this 
reason, they thought that PBL should be a part of other courses. As for Section A, it has a lower mean 
score when compared to other sections; however, it still has an average mean score. Namely, 
participants agreed with items in this section, but their agreement level was not as high as with items 
in other sections. 

3.2. Interview Results 

Responses of 88 participants to 10 interview questions were subjected to inductive content 
analysis, and four primary themes emerged. These themes were organized under the headings of 
“Feelings toward PBL, Knowledge and Skills Gained through PBL, Difficulties Faced during PBL 
and The Use of Moodle during PBL”.  

1) 3.2.1. Feelings toward PBL  

Feelings regarding PBL experiences were categorized under two sub-headings as in Table 5. Table 
5 illustrates feelings about oneself and the PBL experience. Feeling good about PBL was the most 
cited point (f:25), as understood from the excerpts below: 

“I feel good about taking this PBL course because I learnt many things, and also 
how to overcome real problems that I faced in the classroom and in daily life.” 
(P59) 

“I feel pretty good to be a part of the PBL practice since it was highly real-life 
related and gave chances to use what we learnt in real life environment.” (P30) 



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Table 5.  Feelings toward PBL 

Feelings about oneself f Feelings about the experience  f 

Good 25 Useful  21 

Happy 9 Helpful  8 

Joyful 8 Difficult  5 

Independent  3 Effective   4 

Confident  2 Interesting  4 

Lucky  1 Necessary  1 

Following this, participants were also of the opinion that PBL was useful (f:21). One of the 
participants gives details about this issue in the excerpt below:  

“I feel that PBL was really useful because I could do academic work on my own. 
We were asked to prepare an academic work and we could achieve it successfully.” 
(P33)  

 Apart from this, participants felt happy (f:9) and joyful (f:8) about PBL, as implied in the excerpt 
below: 

“I feel satisfied and happy because I learnt deep information about my research 
topic, and taking part in PBL was very enjoyable.” (P25) 

The PBL experience was found to be helpful (f:8), effective (f:4), interesting (f:4) and necessary 
(f:1). One of the participants mentions all these in the following excerpt: 

“We were free in choosing our topic and totally independent. Therefore, it was 
really effective in encouraging us to use our creativity, and it was an interesting 
experience for me.” (P55) 

The only negative feeling about PBL was that it could be difficult (f:5) for some participants, as 
illustrated in the excerpt below: 

 “It is a bit difficult but I learnt many things about my profession.” (P77) 

Among the least referred feelings, there were feelings such as being independent (f:3), confident 
(f:2) and lucky (f:1). As to the course, the least frequent feeling is that the course was necessary (f:1). 
All these show that feelings toward PBL were positive for the great majority of participants. 

“Research was very hard for me but a real-life like practice made me feel that I 
could rely on myself. Also, group work improved my responsibility. That is, I was 
lucky in that sense.” (P12) 

“We feel more independent and confident. We can do research thoroughly because 
there is no time limit. Also, we learnt more and better.” (P1) 

2) Knowledge and skills gained through PBL  

Regarding knowledge and skills gained, Table 6 represents what is learnt in consequence of the 
course:  

Table 6.  Knowledge and Skills Gained through PBL 

I learn how to f I learn how to f 

Make research  35 Regulate self-learning  5 

Solve real-life like problems  23 Make observations 4 

Work in groups 22 Make evaluations 3 

Think critically 11 Make implementations 2 

Acquire academic skills 8 Learn in different ways  2 

Organize information 7 Acquire different teaching skills  2 

Communicate effectively  6 Be independent 1 

Analyze the data at hand 5 Take responsibility  1 



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Table 6 illustrates that the most frequent knowledge/skills gained thanks to PBL are conducting 
research (f:35), solving real-life problems (f:23) and working in groups (f:22). The following excerpts 
point to these issues:  

“I learnt focusing on real problems and how to solve them. I learnt how to solve 
disagreements in the group. In addition, this practice enabled me to develop 
deeper understanding by making research.” (P22) 

“I improved research skills because I studied a real problem and searched for 
information about it. The practice also provided group interaction.” (P17) 

Following this, thinking critically (f:11) is another highly cited skill by the participants, as 
indicated in the excerpt below: 

“I became more creative with PBL because I learnt how to think critically.” (P 13) 

Regarding the rest of the skills and knowledge, improvement of academic skills (f:8), organizing 
information (f:7), effective communication (f:6), data analysis (f:5), regulating self-learning (f:5), 
making observation (f:4), evaluation (f:3) and implementation (f:2), being familiar with new learning 
(f:2) and teaching ways (f:2) can be mentioned. 

“I learnt how a good group interaction should be. I also became familiar with 
research skills. I learnt different ways to organize and analyse information.” (P13) 

“I experienced a student-centered teaching because we had a chance to enhance 
different learning and teaching ways. We evaluated what we observed and made 
implementations.” (P48) 

Even though learning how to study independently and take responsibility were the ones referred 
to only once, they were worth mentioning because such a PBL practice required participants to share 
responsibilities and do their own task independently, and these helped participants work individually 
and collaboratively. The excerpt below indicates this: 

“We all had a different responsibility in the course, first we studied independently 
and then we shared what we learnt with each other.” (P51)  

3) Difficulties faced during PBL  

Along with the fruitful aspects of PBL, some difficulties were revealed as listed in Table 7. 

Table 7.   Difficulties Experienced during PBL 

Difficulties f 

*No difficulty at all 34 

Working in groups  22 

Technological problems  17 

Consuming much time 8 

Getting feedback 3 

Data analysis 2 

Conducting questionnaires 2 

Making observation 1 

Making much effort 1 

Table 7 summarizes difficulties encountered during PBL; however, a great number of the 
participants agreed on the fact that they did not experience any difficulties (f:34). The following two 
excerpts are the indicators of this:  

“I did not face any problem or difficulty.” (P24) 

“I did not face important difficulties. Even if I faced, I would solve them with the 
help of my friends and teacher.” (P19) 



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Apart from this, the most problematic situation (f:22) was linked to working in groups, as 
expressed in the following excerpt: 

“Of course, it required more effort so we tried to work harder and because of group 
works, we faced some difficulties. For example, it was hard to come together with 
group members.” (P71) 

Another noteworthy difficulty was associated with technological problems (f:17 in total), such as 
the use of Moodle (f:9), Internet disconnection (f:5), using blogs (f:1), and computer-related problems 
(f:2). In relation to this, one of the participants reported: 

“Usually, we experienced some technological problems. For example, my internet 
connection broke down. Trying to solve such problems might be irritating.” (P66) 

Consuming so much time (f:8) was another difficulty. Moreover, participants might have difficulty 
in receiving detailed feedback, most probably because PBL was conducted through Moodle: 

“The practice caused me to spend most of my time. Analysing and organizing 
information were a little bit frustrating and we received limited feedback. Using 
Moodle was sometimes difficult.” (P26) 

Data analysis, conducting questionnaires, making observations and making much effort were 
among the other cited difficulties. Furthermore, one participant brought a new dimension to the issue, 
as expressed in the excerpt below: 

“We had always been educated in traditional teacher-centered classes. The 
difficulty was that we engaged in something entirely different from our previous 
learning experiences.” (P48) 

4) The use of Moodle during PBL  

Participants’ views upon the use of Moodle during the process are reported in Table 8. 

Table 8.  Opinions in Relation to the Use of Moodle 

Positive Opinions  f Negative Opinions f 

Useful  42 Complicated, difficult, confusing  10 

Being glad  10 Problematic because of Internet  2 

Time saving 7 Not enjoyable  1 

Makes the learning easier 5 Not useful  1 

Practical  3 Not sufficient  1 

Good if it is taught  1   

Independent work  1   

Interesting  1   

Better understanding  1   

Total  71  15 

As understood from Table 8, in terms of positive opinions, the participants primarily described the 
use of Moodle in the PBL practice as useful (f:42). Using Moodle in the PBL practice made 
participants glad (f:10). Following excerpts explain this:  

“I think using Moodle is very useful for both students and teachers. You can do your 
task in a short time and you can take feedback quickly.” (P88) 

“It is a useful method because all of us come together at any time; we can fulfil our 
responsibilities with the help of feedback.” (P45)  

“I am glad about using Moodle. We could see each other’s studies. We have learned 
a lot from each other’s mistakes.” (P73) 

Apart from these positive opinions, participants also believed that integration of Moodle in PBL 
was time-saving (f:7), made learning easier (f:5) and practical (f:3). Among positive opinions cited 
only once, participants thought that Moodle was interesting and provided independent learning 
opportunities and better understanding. 



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Kırkgöz & Turhan (Views of Turkish EFL teacher trainees toward technology-integrated PBL practices) 

“It was useful; we did not spend much time to show our project to the teacher.” (P12) 

“It is quite practical as it gave us a chance to reach group members at the same 
time.” (P30) 

In terms of negative opinions, a number of participants (f:10) claimed that the use of Moodle was 
initially complicated, difficult or confusing: 

“First, it was difficult to use it but I learnt how to use it in a short time.” (P15) 

“At first, it was a bit confusing but as the time passed, I liked it.” (P13) 

Besides the aforementioned, there were a few participants stating that integration of Moodle was 
problematic because of Internet problems. They also proposed that Moodle was not useful, enjoyable 
and sufficient: 

“Internet disconnections were creating problems for us.” (P46) 

“It is not always easy to be online. Instead of Moodle, we could meet face-to-face 
to share feedback.” (P36) 

3.3. Discussion  

Major findings revealed that participants believed that they reached a deeper understanding of the 
topic they studied by means of PBL. Based on the interview results, it is clear that this was because 
the participants had opportunities to solve authentic problems relevant to their interest. Participants 
also remarked that PBL should be a part of other courses because practical activities based on realistic 
problems helped them learn in different ways and, and it enabled them to relate their in-class 
experiences to real-life situations. In that sense, PBL has proved to be an effective instructional 
approach in education (Kırkgöz, 2015; 2017). PBL can be a logical instructional approach in educating 
teachers to be capable of putting forward diverse perspectives. By experiencing real-life problems 
during teacher education programs, prospective teachers become able to transfer knowledge and skills 
to their professional lives (Borhan, 2014). 

It is obvious that PBL was helpful for research skills of EFL teacher trainees, especially for 
analyzing and organizing information. A similar conclusion was drawn by Stentoft (2019) who 
claimed that PBL might foster medical students’ research skills and competencies. In addition, 
participants considered that they developed critical and analytical thinking skills. As a result, teacher 
trainees who experience such PBL practices will hopefully be one step ahead of their colleagues in 
terms of professional and personal development. Moreover, participants could learn from each other 
while working in groups, and how to resolve disagreements within the group. That is, language 
learning and teaching should be examined in a social basis, and group work appears to be effective in 
helping participants deal with social matters. However, participants indicated that they developed self-
learning skills, which shows that doing academic work individually or being autonomous are among 
the other benefits of PBL as well as they learnt how to strengthen collaboration among them.  

Participants mostly stated that there was no difficulty in PBL practices although they listed some 
obstacles about PBL experiences. To exemplify, working in groups, technological problems, 
consuming much time and receiving limited feedback created challenges in the process. Among those 
reported obstacles, consuming much time was found to be one of the disadvantages that may be 
experienced while trying to frame effective PBL problems by Ribeiro (2011) who also mentioned the 
necessity of intensive research in order to formulate those problems. Based on these, PBL applications 
cannot be asserted to be without deficiencies and may result in inefficient outcomes if the 
implementation is not progressed as it should be. For this reason, in PBL applications, group works 
should be well-designed, technological equipment should be controlled, regular and ongoing feedback 
should be given, and sufficient time should be set to reach maximum success.  

Moodle was found to be useful by participants and they felt glad about using it. The most cited 
benefit of Moodle was that it was time-saving. On the contrary, there were few participants stating 
that Moodle was complicated and confusing. In parallel with this, So and Kim (2009) alleged that 
teacher trainees benefited from the technology-enhanced PBL course though they had several 
difficulties in applying knowledge into a technology-integrated PBL lesson. Despite some threats such 
as low student motivation, limited instructional time, lack of establishing collaboration, weak 



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Kırkgöz & Turhan (Views of Turkish EFL teacher trainees toward technology-integrated PBL practices) 

questioning techniques (Pecore, 2013), PBL practices can be more fruitful with technology integration 
as revealed in the current study.  

4. Conclusion 

The objective of the study is to determine prospective teachers’ opinions and evaluations about 
PBL through Moodle in a teacher education course. Findings suggest that PBL is useful in a number 
of aspects such as becoming familiar with steps of research, working in groups, developing autonomy, 
solving real-life problems and having deeper understanding of theory. At this point, it should be noted 
that PBL is not a panacea, but motivating and interesting because trainees themselves choose the topic 
and materials. Moreover, the sense of solving a real problem in a real language classroom may be 
considered as a triggering force for the trainees to be more eager to complete their PBL practices. The 
typical and traditional way of delivering the Materials Evaluation and Adaptation course would be to 
ask trainees to select an English textbook and make theoretical analysis on it in terms of the design of 
its content, sequence of the activities, and the language skills developed and so on. Yet, such a 
procedure can only enhance the theoretical knowledge without any opportunity to engage in practice 
in authentic environments or to receive peer support. For this reason, the preference of PBL in teacher 
education courses, as in the present study, may provide the trainees with the opportunity to gain more 
than theoretical knowledge. Namely, they can have the chance to put their theoretical knowledge into 
practice by solving authentic problems in collaboration with their peers under the guidance of their 
teacher educator. Most importantly, the fact that the trainees identify and solve the problems 
themselves in PBL may arouse the feeling of self-confidence by realizing that they are able to reflect 
all knowledge they have learnt in methodology courses upon practices in real classrooms. Another 
dimension of the study is the integration of Moodle into PBL, which helped participants gain 
awareness about new information technologies. For this reason, we recommend that a balance between 
conventional and technology-integrated instruction should be built. That is, face-to-face instruction 
and the use of online tools in teacher education courses could be equated in order to maximize one’s 
advantages and to minimize the other’s disadvantages.  

As an implication, any branch of knowledge can be adjusted to PBL despite the fact that the 
problems may differ among disciplines. PBL can be adapted in any teacher education course with ease 
and this makes it practical for tutors to implement PBL at tertiary level. Therefore, PBL should be an 
indispensable part of teacher education programs. This is also confirmed by this study because 
participants believed that PBL should be a part of other courses in their department. Regarding 
limitations, the current study is only concerned with senior students’ PBL experiences, and data were 
elicited solely from questionnaires and interviews. In a further study, freshman, sophomore or junior 
students could be involved, and different data collection tools could be utilized to triangulate the data. 
The greatest limitations can be attributed to technological problems. To overcome this, before such 
implementations, one needs to ensure that every participant possesses quality technological gadgets 
such as phones, tablets or laptops and Internet connection. Considering the positive impacts of this 
study, future research could be geared toward educating teachers on the way to teaching languages by 
means of PBL.  

 

Declaration 
Author contribution : The first author is in charge of resources, methodology, data curation, 

writing, review, editing, investigation, conceptualization, validation, 

supervision. The second author is in charge of formal analysis, 

validation, methodology, investigation, writing original draft, writing, 

review and editing. 

Funding statement : The research is funded under no research project. 

Conflict of interest : The author declares no conflict of interest. 

Additional information : No additional information is available for this paper. 
 

 

 



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Kırkgöz & Turhan (Views of Turkish EFL teacher trainees toward technology-integrated PBL practices) 

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