Problem-Based Learning Approach in Medical Education in Iran: A Systematic literature Review

Problem solving skills are at the highest level of human cognition and are considered to be the most valuable educational goals. Due to the nature of the discipline, medical students need to upgrade their problem-solving skills. This article aimed to investigate the findings of studies on the use of problem-based Learning in medical education.

In this systematic review, using the databases SID and Irandoc, Magiran and Iran Medex from and searching the Scopus, Pubmed, Web of Science databases from 1970 to 2018, Barley and extracted. Then, all articles that had inclusion criteria were studied. To increase the reliability of the study, two researchers evaluated the quality of the articles separately.

Of the 4500 original articles, 16 articles were reviewed in the final review. 15 items were quantitative and one of them was a qualitative article. The findings of the articles point to the fact that using the problem-based method in self-directed learning is effective. In this way, students analyze information and achieve the result and avoid repetition and memorization.

Use of modern teaching methods to motivate students to actively participate is necessity. Improving students' ability to access and use resources independently to improve their ability to solve problems in medical science education is one of the important issues that should be given special attention, therefore, it is recommended to use this method both in theory education and in clinical education of students.