Engineering educators’ professional learning for educational change in a PBL-base and cross-institutional programme in Africa: a Q-study

ABSTRACT

This study explored engineering educators’ perspectives on their professional learning in a pedagogical development programme with the ultimate goal of achieving educational change in African countries through the adoption of PBL methodology. This study was based on a three-year-long programme organised by a Danish university through an Erasmus programme with the participation of diverse institutions across Africa. Q methodology was adopted with 40 participants to explore both individual and collective subjective views of supporting factors for professional learning. Q-factor analysis resulted in three prevailing group-based opinions, which respectively emphasised 1) improvement of teaching competence and student benefits in terms of employability, 2) personal benefits in terms of job opportunities and 3) institutional support leading to confidence in PBL implementation. The results suggest that individual awareness and effort, as well as institutional support, is essential for the facilitation of educators’ learning as an outcome of pedagogical development. It is concluded that pedagogical development efforts should consider the complexity of engineering educators’ professional learning process and that this has implications for the future organisation of professional learning programmes in general and the format of cross-institutional collaboration in particular.

KEYWORDS:

• Engineering educators
• professional learning
• educational change
• PBL
• Q methodology
• Africa

1. Introduction

1.1. Background in Africa

In alignment with common trends in higher education (HE) systems globally, HE across countries in Africa has been evolving, with the goals of achieving economic growth and social justice through the widening participation of diverse social groups (Mkude 2011; Ngubane and Makua 2021). The process of democratising HE has encountered challenges due to a conflict between the goals of expanding HE participation and producing a workforce of a quality adequate to meet the needs of the market (Provini 2019). Despite the cross-country challenges in HE reforms, each institution has its unique experiences regarding both supports and constraints related to its specific socioeconomic contextual features and national policies (Leibowitz et al. 2015). This variety of conditions also shapes a wide range of beliefs on what makes for high-quality teaching and learning, which highlights the rather inconclusive situation of professional learning development for academics due to the diverse conditions of institutional history and vision, resources, capacity, recognition and rewarding policies, leadership roles and administration procedures (Leibowitz et al. 2015; Mushemeza 2016). Despite the complexity of subjecting such widely varied institutions to change, a centralised approach to curriculum reform, namely one initiated by policymakers, is often practised across countries in Africa (Yidana and Aboagye 2018; Zindi 2018). This approach has been criticised for generating disparities between intention and actual practice by teachers who have not been initially involved and prepared and may therefore interpret the targeted changes differently (Chimbunde and Kgari-Masondo 2021). University educators play a vital role in solving the challenges of implementing new curriculum and teaching methods, in particular in the case of a top-down decision for change (Yidana and Aboagye 2018). For the overall advancement of HE quality in Africa, it is essential to provide opportunities for university academic staff to develop professionally (Chimbunde and Kgari-Masondo 2021; Mushemeza 2016).

In order to overcome the challenges in shifting from lecture-based traditional teaching to learner-centred active learning, scholarly attention has been paid to designing and practising professional development activities to support educators in promoting educational change. The demands in African contexts are in line with a global trend of developing university pedagogical competencies across countries (Nørgaard, Bregnhøj, and Kira 2020). These activities have taken diverse forms, including workshops, courses and programmes either within the institution or collaboratively across institutions (Hénard and Roseveare 2012; Du et al. 2022a). Within this context, problem-based and project-based learning (PBL), a learner-centred pedagogy in which students construct the meaning of knowledge by solving problems and learning collaboratively (Kolmos et al. 2008), has been applied as core theoretical guidance for the design of professional development activities because of its effectiveness in improving the quality of teaching and learning (Chen et al. 2021a; Du et al. 2022b). While an increase in professional learning activities among engineering educators has been reported, the conceptualisation of engineering educators’ professional learning as a complex dynamic system involving multiple interacting factors suggests that educators do not learn from professional development activities in a linear way and that they, therefore, require long-term activities for ongoing support (Chen, Kolmos, and Du 2021b; Du and Lundberg 2021). Accordingly, professional development activities should address the simulative, contextual and dynamic characteristics of educators’ learning through long-term support (Du and Lundberg 2021). In particular, research that involves cross-institutional collaboration in supporting educators’ professional learning deserves more attention (Du and Lundberg 2021; Du et al. 2022a).

In the African context, previous studies have emphasised the empowerment of educators in professional learning by engaging them in professional learning activities (e.g. workshops, seminars and conferences) and encouraging them to practise innovative teaching and learning (Ajani 2018; Frantz et al. 2015). However, the complex ways in which these university educators learn through negotiating the institutional and cultural contexts they are situated in, and the challenges they encounter, have not been sufficiently studied, and more research on this topic is therefore required (Ajani 2018). In particular, although PBL has been suggested as a viable solution for dealing with various challenges as well as an effective approach for engineering educators’ professional learning in sub-Saharan African countries (Dahms and Stentoft 2008), little empirical analysis has been conducted on this topic.

1.2. Research objectives

The present study is embedded in the context of a cross-institutional and cross-cultural collaborative project called the Enhancing Entrepreneurship, Innovation and Sustainability in Higher Education in Africa (EEISHEA) programme, which built collaborations with collaborations between two European universities and five African universities. The project ran from October 2017 to October 2022. To support the reform of HE, five study programmes were redesigned at East and West African universities: Kilimanjaro Christian Medical University College (KCMUCo); State University of Zanzibar (SUZA) and Sokoine University of Agriculture (SUA) in Tanzania; and Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST) and University of Energy and Natural Resources (UENR) in Ghana. The programmes were selected according to their expected impact on EEISHEA in terms of identifying areas where entrepreneurship, innovation and sustainability could be improved.

With the goal of enhancing innovation and sustainable development in higher education in Africa, the professional learning programme reported in this study adopted PBL as the main methodology for educators’ professional learning because of the alignment between the objectives of EEISHEA and the benefits of PBL in terms of teaching and learning. In concrete terms, this study was guided by the following research question: How do engineering educators perceive their professional learning for educational change in a PBL-based, cross-institutional, collaborative professional development programme in Africa?

Empirically, this study explores the viewpoints of 40 engineering educators from five different African institutions on their participation in a three-year professional development programme organised by Aalborg University. Q methodology was adopted in this study, which enabled researchers to collect and analyse data both quantitatively and qualitatively (Brown 1980) and explore viewpoints shared by participants on important aspects of their professional learning and the complexity of learning in the professional training programme.

2. Theoretical framework – professional learning for educational change

The theoretical roots of professional learning for educational change evolved from complexity theory, which is a theory of change, adaptation and development that is widely used in higher education (Cilliers 1998; Morrison 2008). Complexity theory highlights the need for self-organised education systems with active learners to meet the requirements of society by promoting educational change (Morrison 2008). Viewed through the lens of complexity theory, learning is a dynamic, complex, nonlinear, self-organised, open and emergent process in which participants influence and are influenced by interactions with other members of the learning community (Larsen-Freeman 2019; Morrison 2008). In this context, educators and students become co-constructors of meaning from their experiences and make choices in their practice based on their experiences (Mercer 2012). Accordingly, this study applies complexity theory to underline the interplay between different components in the complex and dynamic system of professional learning, with an emphasis on three interrelated aspects: individual, relational and contextual, as shown in Table 1.

Table 1. The theoretical framework of professional learning for educational change.

Domain	Theme	Sub-theme	No. of related statement
Individual	Cognitive components	Prior teaching experiences	31
		A sense of discrepancy: change is needed	22, 32
		Self-efficacy	24, 26
		Principal support	18, 21
		Valence: seeing benefits	19, 23, 25
	Affective components	Emotions: love, hate, delight, sadness, happiness	17
		Job satisfaction: emotional acceptance and adoption of a plan; current and future-oriented emotions	4, 30
Relational	Peer support	Peer support from the professional learning programme	13, 20
		Collegiality at home institutions	1, 3, 29
	Student feedback	Acceptance	2
		Learning engagement	28
		Improved outcomes	6
		Shared beliefs	27
Contextual (institutional support and societal factors)	Leadership	Beliefs	8
		Understanding	11
		Prospects	15
	Institutional culture	Shared goals	7
		Common practices	5
	Policy	Rewards	14
		Requests	9
	Society	Professional demands	10
		Community	16
		Societal values	12

Engineering educators’ cognitive sources, such as their prior teaching experience, self-efficacy motivations and intention to improve, are important individual components of their professional learning for educational change. Educators’ understanding of concrete disciplines and their prior teaching experiences form the basis of their teaching beliefs, thoughts and self-reflection about professional learning and impact their instructional decisions, use of learning approaches, future teaching practices and actions for educational change (Abdi and Asadi 2015; Quinn 2003). Meanwhile, educators’ self-efficacy in their teaching competence, which is influenced by their prior teaching experiences, is another essential cognitive component of professional learning (Hoy et al. 2009). Educators’ self-efficacy significantly correlates with the level of their engagement in professional learning activities (Tschannen-Moran and Hoy 2001). Educators’ motivations and intentions to improve the quality of teaching and learning, increase teaching competence and pursue career development also play an important role in encouraging their participation in professional learning and application of innovative learning methods (Bouwma-Gearhart 2012; Leibowitz et al. 2015). Those who realise the benefits of active learning methods such as PBL have been found to have greater motivation to engage in pedagogical and professional development activities and promote educational change (Chen et al. 2021a).

Another theme of individual sources is the affective component, which refers to educators’ positive emotions and level of satisfaction with their performance and study environment. Individuals’ positive emotions, such as a sense of happiness, achievement, self-organisation and life satisfaction, influence how they think about experience, academic achievement and generic competence development (Lucas and Goodman 2015). These affective components can in turn influence individuals’ willingness to learn and accept new knowledge and skills and thereby impact their performance (Donohue and Bornman 2021; Du and Lundberg 2021).

Within the relational domain, essential components of professional learning include peer support and student feedback. From the perspective of complexity theory, the way in which educators self-organise in complex situations and make choices in their teaching behaviours is influenced by their interactions with other members of the professional community (Garner and Kaplan 2021). Involving a community of educators in professional learning brings peer support and opportunities for educators to collaborate on teaching and share their experiences about learning methods, teaching practices, challenges and possible solutions (Chuchalin, Malmqvist, and Tayurskaya 2016). On the basis of exploring African educators’ epistemological perspectives on professional learning, Quinn reported that sharing individual experiences and reflections with colleagues inspired educators’ understanding of knowledge, cross-disciplinary applications of pedagogical theories, and individual development, which in turn contributed to their motivation to engage in professional learning and their willingness to support educational change (Quinn 2003). In addition, positive responses from students, such as acceptance of innovative learning approaches, heightened learning engagement and improved learning outcomes, also constitute a type of relational source for educators’ professional development (Estes et al. 2019; Felder and Brent 2010; Kerst et al. 2017). Positive feedback from students helps educators understand the benefits of these new learning approaches through their own practices, progressively change their approach to constructivism and further engage in professional development (Du et al. 2020a).

The domain of contextual sources highlights the interplay between individuals and their environment, which incorporates key aspects of this study, such as leadership, institutional culture, policy and society (Du and Lundberg 2021; Hallinger 2003; Sabah and Du 2018). Leadership refers to university managers’ beliefs and understanding and the prospects for educators’ professional development and educational change (Hallinger 2003). University leadership that was informed and supportive of educational changes was identified as an indispensable source of educators’ professional learning, especially in an African context where the resources are limited (D’Andrea and Gosling 2005; Leibowitz et al. 2015).

Institutional culture includes shared goals and common teaching and learning practices, which are also linked to the institution’s faculty recognition, appraisal and promotion policies, influencing educators’ engagement in professional development (Leibowitz et al. 2015; Nagabhushan and Sohoni 2020; Retallick and Fink 2002). Meanwhile, at research universities, resources and energies were redirected from undergraduate teaching and learning to research due to the priority of research development in their institutional culture, constraining educators’ professional learning and posing a challenge to both African and Western-world universities (Leibowitz et al. 2015; Leisyte, Enders, and Boer 2009). In addition, in Africa, with far fewer resources, there are significant socioeconomic disparities between educational institutions and in society as a whole (Carr-Hill 2020; Leibowitz et al. 2015). Thus, in addition to the leadership and institutional culture, the socioeconomic conditions, geographic location, resourcing and history of a given institution exerted significant influence or even constraints on its educators’ professional development (Leibowitz et al. 2015).

A broader aspect of contextual sources is related to the demands and values of society, which determine the direction of professional learning and have a significant influence on the broader collaboration between institutions for educators’ professional development and those working for the overall improvement of student learning experiences and outcomes (McComb and Eather 2017). Especially in the African context, following the shift to democracy since the 1990s, the HE system is undergoing a transformation from lecture-based traditional learning to innovative and active learning to improve teaching practices within the concrete disciplinary and institutional situation (Quinn 2003). Competence requirements for the whole education system and supportive policy at the national level could help to overcome the constraints and inequality at the institutional level and play a strong role in improving the quality of learning and teaching and promoting educators’ professional development for educational changes (Leibowitz et al. 2015).

These three domains – individual, relational and contextual (with the contextual domain embracing both institutional and societal factors) – emphasise support from institutional settings, which in turn determines the ways in which educators can receive support from their institutions as well as whether educators’ professional learning and changes in teaching practices can be supported in a sustainable way (Felder, Brent, and Prince 2015; Saroyan and Trigwell 2015).

3. Methodology

3.1. Research context and participants – the EEISHEA project

This paper developed from an interest in supporting the reform of HE study programmes in sub-Saharan Africa by ensuring that curricula are highly relevant to modern African economic and social needs. The European Union-funded Erasmus + Capacity-Building Project No. 589416, ‘Enhancing Entrepreneurship, Innovation and Sustainability in Higher Education in Africa’ (EEISHEA), is the context for this study. The overall objective of EEISHEA was to improve HE study programmes by designing curricula that are relevant to African needs and thereby equip university graduates with skills and competencies that support their employability, including self-employment, and to achieve a strong sustainability profile within the graduates’ professional disciplines. The method used to meet these objectives was the transformation (or redesign) of study programmes according to PBL and student-centred learning (SCL) pedagogical methodologies, the facilitation of students’ learning processes and the implementation of problem-oriented project work. The implementation of PBL in HE, among other impacts, fosters competencies in problem-solving, collaboration, critical thinking, creativity and communication among students. These skills and competencies are indispensable for innovation and entrepreneurship (Holgaard, Skaaning, and Vestergaard 2020). Furthermore, PBL provides the opportunity to address authentic and local problems as a means of learning and thereby equip African graduates with the necessary skills and competencies to promote environmentally friendly economic growth and a context in which sustainable professional competencies can be developed. Thus, a professional learning programme reported in this study, which focused on PBL and student-centred learning and was hosted by Aalborg University (Denmark) and the Royal Institute of Technology (Sweden), was an important and indispensable part of the EEISHEA project.

In this programme, four-day face-to-face workshops were designed for participants, with contents related to E-learning, sustainability, the history of PBL, PBL principles, and diverse types of PBL implementation at the course, curriculum and international levels (Chen et al. 2021a) to inspire participants’ redesign of their courses and curricula. The aim of this programme was not to teach the participants about a certain type of PBL implementation but to encourage them to develop and practise their own PBL design based on the situation of their home institutions. Thus, the concept of PBL used in this programme contained both project- and problem-based learning methods and included various PBL models at different implementation levels. During the workshops, participants worked in collaboration with industry and had opportunities to communicate with local students, teachers and industry representatives, which gave them broad stakeholders’ perspectives on the usefulness of PBL. After the workshops, participants were required to teach their colleagues about student-centred learning and began to practice their PBL design at the course level in their home universities. To support the implementation of PBL, the EU expert groups provided supervision and feedback to participants via an online platform.

3.2. Research design – Q methodology

To explore how engineering educators perceive their professional learning for educational change in a PBL-based cross-institutional collaborative professional development programme in Africa, Q methodology was adopted. This methodology enables researchers to capture individual subjectivities, including beliefs and perceptions, as well as shared patterns of perspectives within participant groups (Brown 1980) and is thus appropriate to this study’s objectives of investigating engineering educators’ perspectives and their preparedness for educational change. Moreover, the Q methodology overcomes the usual limitations of quantitative and qualitative research. On the one hand, this methodology minimises social desirability bias in qualitative studies by using factor analysis, where Q statements serve as the sample and participants who conduct the Q sorting become the variables (Watts and Stenner 2012). On the other hand, it identifies the opinions shared by individual groups as well as individual values, information that can be limited in quantitative studies (Fluckinger 2014; Lundberg, de Leeuw, and Aliani 2020). This information can provide insights into directions for future research and programmatic directions by identifying consensus and contrasts in viewpoints (Donner 2001). Q methodology was thus selected as an appropriate method to investigate the perspectives of engineering educators on their professional learning and readiness for a PBL-based professional learning programme. The data collection and analysis processes followed a standard Q methodological procedure synthesised by Watts and Stenner (2012), including steps of ‘concourse development, Q set construction, participant Q sorting, post-sorting activities, Q factor analysis, and factor interpretation’ (Watts and Stenner 2012).

3.2.1. Q set development

Figure 1 shows the construction and development of the Q set, a group of diverse statements linked to the research topic (Stephenson 1953) – in this case, engineering educators’ perspectives and readiness for educational change through a PBL-based professional development programme. In order to include as many supportive sources as possible, a literature review on professional learning for educational change was conducted in the authors’ prior empirical studies (Du et al. 2022a; 2022b; Du and Lundberg 2021). The authors of this study have been experienced experts in PBL and professional development in HE for decades. One author is also an expert in Q methodology and educational research and has published several Q studies of professional development in international journals (Du et al. 2022a; 2022b; Du and Lundberg 2021). Based on the literature review and the authors’ previous work, with the guidance of the theoretical framework, the concourse developed for this study included the individual, relational and institutional domains, with 73 statements in the initial draft.

Figure 1. Development of Q set.

Within the theoretical framework of professional learning and using the three abovementioned domains – individual, relational and contextual – as the deductive starting point, the inductive emergence of new statements was also included in the construction of the Q set (Du and Lundberg 2021). To check content validity, three international experts on PBL and professional development were invited to review the Q set (Watts and Stenner 2012). Two experts in Q methodology were also invited to serve as external reviewers by checking the research design and Q analysis processes based on their expertise in PBL, professional development, Q methodology and language checking. In a Q study, it is important that statements be clearly distinguished from each other to enable participants to compare them and conduct the ranking. Thus, in this round, statements with similar meanings were merged, and two new statements were proposed by external experts, leading the initial draft of 73 statements to be reduced to 41 statements. To further sharpen the Q set, two rounds of the pilot Q sorting were conducted among six engineering educators who were not participants in this study; their feedback was used for further refining the statements to ensure that participants could understand them. During this process, six items were deleted from the draft of the Q set due to overlap or irrelevance pointed out by the pilot participants. The last round was a discussion amongst the research team, which yielded another round of self-reflection on the statements based on the feedback from the experts and pilot studies. The final Q set contained 34 items, including 13 statements in the individual domain, nine statements in the relational domain and 10 statements in the contextual (institutional and societal) domain.

3.2.2. Q sorting and post-sorting questions

The Q sorting was conducted on paper in October 2022. Printed copies of the Q set were sent to all participants in the EEISHEA programme, and the survey was completed on a voluntary basis. Information on the objectives, design, data collection procedure and data management strategies of the research project was provided to the participants, who were invited to sign to indicate their informed consent to participate in the survey. In total, 40 out of 45 participants in the EEISHEA programme responded, including three females and 37 males; professionally, the participants included professors, associate professors, lecturers, and IT officers from five African universities mentioned above. Most participants were from STEM disciplines, while a few were from social science, law or e-learning but now worked as educators in engineering departments or were engineering faculty in their institutions.

Participants were asked to rank items individually according to their experiences of what had happened or what might prospectively happen. The survey question was as follows: ‘Through your participation in EEISHEA, what do you think is most important to support you to be prepared for further educational change using the PBL method at your institution?’

Participants were required to assign a hierarchical ranking (from −4 to +4, respectively indicating ‘less important’ and ‘more important’) to each item on a paper copy of the grid. Each grid square only contained one item; the participants thus needed to compare statements as to their importance and make decisions based on their subjective opinions. During the Q sorting process, the authors also orally explained research objectives and procedures, addressed participants’ concerns and questions and provided support for their Q sorting without influencing their decisions about the ranking of statements.

To understand participants’ choice, post-sorting activity is an essential process, usually in the form of interviews (Shemmings and Ellingsen 2012) or written responses (Watts and Stenner 2012). In this study, four post-sorting questions were asked at the end of the survey, including 1) why participants ranked two particular statements as the most important; 2) why they ranked two particular statements as the least important; 3) whether there were any statements that they thought should be added according to the given topic; and 4) whether there were any other aspects of their participation in this study and the programme in general that they would like to address.

The first two post-sorting questions provided additional information that helped the authors to understand participants’ perspectives on their professional learning during this PBL programme. Quotations from participants’ answers were used to support the descriptions of factor arrays when the statements in the collective factor array were consistent with their choices. Meanwhile, the authors acknowledge that compared to interviews, written post-sorting questions provided limited information about the reasons for participants’ choices and their individual values, which is one limitation of this study.

3.2.3. Q factor analysis and interpretation

Since the Q sorting was conducted using paper and pencil, the second author carefully entered the raw data from the paper Q sorting into the KADE format, which is a Q analysis tool used to condense data and identify the informative factor solution through correlation, centroid analysis and varimax rotation, and computation of factor scores (Banasick 2019). The last author independently checked that the data was entered, and the research team then measured Q-sort correlations and performed an inverted factor analysis. The correlation matrix gives the inter-correlations among all 40 Q sorts. Then, factor analysis was performed to seek correlations between variables (participants) and condense the information systematically (Watts and Stenner 2012). To decide the number of factors (discourses) to be extracted from the analysis, the statistical criterion commonly used is eigenvalues equal to or higher than 1.00. In Q methodology, the acceptable factors should include two or more significantly-loading participants (Watts and Stenner 2012). In addition, in Q methodology it is important to determine the number of factors with theoretical significance (Brown 1980). Accordingly, three factors were extracted, with eigenvalues equal to or higher than 1.00 and two or more significantly-loading participants. An external expert in Q methodology was involved in conducting the analysis independently for auditing purposes. The process identified groups of participants’ Q sorts as factor arrays (the composite Q-sort results, shown in Figures 2–4) by calculating the weighted averages of significantly-loading results.

Figure 2. Analysis results for Factor 1.

Figure 3. Analysis results for Factor 2.

Figure 4. Analysis results for Factor 3.

As is characteristic of qualitative research, Q methodology enables researchers to make choices about data presentation (Lundberg, de Leeuw, and Aliani 2020). Based on the discussion with the external expert and within the research group, the loading results were interpreted with the support of the theoretical framework and participants’ qualitative elaborations on their item ranking decisions. A consensus was reached within the research group, which indicated the factors’ theoretical significance and an informative factor solution (Lundberg, de Leeuw, and Aliani 2020), meaning that shared values could be identified within a factor group and distinguished from other groups. The three extracted factors were named: Improvement of teaching competence and student employability benefits (Factor 1), Personal benefits in terms of job opportunities (Factor 2) and Institutional supports leading to confidence in PBL implementation (Factor 3) Table 2.

Table 2. Participant loading results for factors.

No.	Q sort	Factor Group	Factor 1	Factor 2	Factor 3
17	US17	F1–2	0.6968	0.2121	0.2391
15	US15	F1–3	0.6956	0.1335	0.1072
4	US4	F1–4	0.6221	0.1197	0.2218
30	US30	F1–5	0.6028	0.4499	0.1788
28	US28	F1–6	0.5596	0.1422	0.2379
39	US39	F1–7	0.5484	0.1944	0.2144
16	US16	F1–8	0.5483	0.282	−0.2322
11	US11	F1–9	0.5416	−0.022	0.4023
21	US21	F1–10	0.5189	0.3816	0.2817
2	US2	F1–11	0.5102	0.3311	0.4159
20	US20	F1–12	0.5026	0.0445	0.0064
8	US8	F1–13	0.4967	0.3939	0.0755
25	US25	F1–14	0.4864	0.2897	−0.2431
40	US40	F1–15	0.4703	0.3112	−0.1123
37	US37	F2–1	0.2329	0.6629	0.1876
6	US6	F2–2	0.1773	0.6492	0.1939
19	US19	F2–3	−0.0213	0.6342	0.0476
18	US18	F2–5	0.183	0.5557	−0.1113
31	US31	F2–6	0.1408	0.5219	0.0108
10	US10	F2–7	0.1374	0.4838	−0.2042
26	US26	F3–1	0.3636	0.094	0.6558
22	US22	F3–2	−0.2182	0.0605	0.5981
27	US27	F3–3	−0.2278	−0.2821	0.5119
38	US38	F3–4	−0.0746	−0.0829	0.4956
14	US14	F3–5	0.1667	0.1855	0.4943
12	US12	F3–6	0.2216	0.4167	0.4744
5	US5	F1–1	0.7139	0.4714	−0.1697
29	US29	F2–4	0.4617	0.6071	0.2768
1	US1	F3–10	0.1294	−0.02	0.1843
3	US3	F2–10	0.3209	0.334	−0.0605
7	US7	F1–16	−0.4324	−0.2539	0.0637
9	US9	F1–18	0.3815	−0.1312	0.1596
13	US13	F3–8	0.0536	−0.1275	0.2558
23	US23	F1–19	0.3548	0.1967	−0.0556
24	US24	F2–8	−0.4525	0,4532	0.2896
32	US32	F3–9	0,2483	0.1934	0.2539
33	US33	F1–17	0.4205	0.0955	0.0079
34	US34	F1–20	−0.2684	−0.166	0.2484
35	US35	F2–9	0.1639	0.3725	−0.0752
36	US36	F3–7	0.1409	0.2338	0.4398

Of the 40 participants, 26 loaded significantly on one of the three factors, as shown in Table 2, with a cutoff score of 0.46 (2.58*1/√ no. of item = 2.58*1/√ 32 = 0.46; Watts and Stenner 2012). Twelve participants were not loaded significantly on any factors. Two participants (Nos. 5 and 29) were significantly loaded on both Factor 1 and Factor 2, which was considered a confounded result. Following the guidelines of Stenner, Watts, and Worrell (2008), the responses of 14 participants were not included in the final interpretation due to the decreased distinction between factor arrays. In order to develop an overview of engineering educators’ perspectives on the study topic, holistic factor interpretation was conducted. The detailed findings of the Q factor analysis are reported in the next section.

4. Results

This section provides interpretations of the data produced by Q-factor analysis. To report interpretations of the results highlighting the collective opinions held by participants in groups, each factor is described in the form of a holistic narrative that includes quantitative attributes and factor interpretation. Each statement’s number is specified in brackets, together with its given value in the particular factor array. Each statement is referred to by its item number and rated on a scale from −4 to +4 (e.g. ‘#5/3’ refers to statement 5 with a value of 3). The use of ‘D’ for ‘distinguishing statements’ (p < 0.05) after the value number indicates statements regarding which viewpoints significantly differed, and D* is used to indicate ‘significantly distinguishing statements’ (p < 0.01). Table 3 provides an overview of these results.

Table 3. Factor Q-sort values for statements sorted by level of consensus (from the greatest consensus to the greatest disagreement).

No.	Statement	Factor 1	Factor 2	Factor 3	Z-score variance
6	My students’ learning performance is improved with an initial PBL piloting experience.	1	0	1	0.007
30	I appreciate new ways of thinking about education.	2	2	2	0.011
2	My students react positively to an initial PBL piloting experience.	0	0	0	0.012
5	My institution has the culture to encourage innovative teaching.	−1	−1	−1	0.017
32	PBL is appropriate for solving the current students’ learning problems that I have experienced.	4	3	3	0.029
22	There is a need to change the prevailing teaching methods in my institution.	1	1	0	0.045
28	My students’ engagement in learning is improved with an initial PBL piloting experience.	0	0	−1	0.068
10	Implementing PBL is suitable for addressing professional practice demands.	1	3	2	0.092
14	There are rewards for implementing new teaching practices at my institution.	−3	−3	−4	0.101
29	My institutional colleagues provide constructive feedback on my teaching practice.	−2	−3	−4	0.116
18	I anticipate receiving the support required from my institution to implement PBL.	0	−2	−2	0.126
17	I enjoyed my initial PBL practice.	0	1	0	0.142
4	I value my learning gains from this EEISHEA project.	3	4	1	0.160
16	Implementing PBL provides opportunities for students to be connected to the community.	1	1	4	0.163
21	I anticipate receiving sufficient information about my institution’s implementation plans to implement PBL.	−1	−4	−3	0.173
26	I am capable of implementing PBL.	0	0	3	0.191
13	The EEISHEA project activities have inspired me to proceed further with PBL implementation.	2	2	0	0.229
9	My institution requests that I further implement PBL.	−2	−2	0	0.255
27	My students share the belief that PBL is beneficial to their future study.	1	−1	−1	0.325
1	My institutional colleagues understand why I seek to implement PBL.	−4	0	−2	0.355
11	My institutional leaders understand what it means to implement PBL.	−2	−1	1	0.422
7	There is a common understanding in my institution of its educational goals.	−1	−1	1	0.491
8	My leaders have a common understanding – that PBL is appropriate for our institution.	−3	−2	1	0.530
3	My institutional colleagues show interest in joining me in future PBL implementation.	−1	−2	2	0.660
31	I am able to relate my own learning experience in the EEISHEA project to my new teaching practice.	2	1	−2	0.711
24	My institution is capable of implementing PBL with the needed resources.	−2	−1	2	0.726
23	Implementing PBL will improve my teaching competence.	4	1	−1	0.772
12	There is a societal trend toward adopting pedagogical methods that suit the younger generation’s learning needs.	2	−4	0	1.115
15	My institutional leaders are interested in extending PBL implementation.	0	0	4	1.192
25	Engaging in PBL implementation is beneficial for my future job opportunities.	−1	4	−1	1.265
20	My participation in the EEISHEA project inspired me to implement PBL.	3	2	−2	1.339
19	Engaging in PBL implementation enhances my qualifications for academic promotion.	−4	2	−3	1.989

4.1. Factor 1: improvement of teaching competence and student employability benefits

Fourteen participants (13 male and one female) from six different institutions in Ghana and Tanzania significantly loaded on Factor 1 with an explained variance of 17%. This group included two professors and two associate professors; the rest were lecturers. Their backgrounds were in social work, e-learning, law, ICT, computer science and engineering subjects, and they were now working as educators in engineering fields.

As shown in Figure 2, all participants highlighted the importance of the improvement in teaching competence they achieved through the PBL-based EEISHEA project. For them, benefits for students were vital to all educational efforts. They believed that PBL is an appropriate way to improve their students’ learning and that it contributes to employability at the larger scale of societal change in education.

In concrete terms, the participants emphasised the improvement of teaching competence achieved by implementing PBL in engineering education (#23/4D*). This focus is related to their focus on benefits for students. While they believed that there is a societal trend toward adopting pedagogical methods that suit the learning needs of younger generations (#2/2D*), their learning through this project helped them to develop new ways of thinking about education (#30/2C*). Students’ shared belief that PBL is beneficial for their future studies was also considered important (#27/1D*). These beliefs were further endorsed in their post-sorting information, as most of them wrote about PBL in terms of the need for educational reforms and employability in general in the African context. For example, one noted: ‘PBL will bring out the potential in students and prepare them for the future job market’ (F1–6). Another wrote: ‘The PBL method will strengthen our teaching for the transformation of students’ abilities to address the societal challenges … ’ (F1–13)

As a result of their inspiration and learning through the EEISHEA project, participants implemented PBL in their actual practices (#20/3D*) by applying their own learning experiences to their new teaching methods (#31/2). They expressed their positive attitudes and intention to go forward with PBL practice by proceeding further with PBL implementation (#13/2). As one participant elaborated: ‘The EEISHEA facilitated the acquisition of knowledge and skills for me to implement in my own institution.’ (F1–14)

However, these participants ranked low in institutional factors, including colleagues’ understanding of why they would seek to implement PBL (#1/−4), leaders’ understanding of PBL appreciation (#8/−3), what it means to implement PBL (#11/−2) and institutional requests to further implement PBL (#9/−2). These choices were related to a lack of institutional readiness to change, because the participants did not consider the institutions capable of implementing PBL or possessed of the necessary resources to do so (#24/−2), nor did they feel that their institutions had appropriate cultures for the encouragement of innovative teaching (#5/−1C*) or a common understanding of the institutions’ educational goals (#7/−1). They elaborated on this by outlining a lack of institutional support for shifting toward PBL methods and a lack of willingness to do so on the part of the institutional leadership. As one participant explained in writing: ‘Those aspects require a policy shift in the institution before more colleagues understand the need to change and to use that method (PBL) of teaching.’

Additionally, these participants did not consider personal benefits to be important, disagreeing, for example, that engaging in the implementation of PBL would enhance their qualification for academic promotion (#19/−4) or that it would be beneficial for their future job opportunities (#25/−1). Such choices were attributed to their prioritisation of their students over themselves; as one participant wrote: ‘My choice to make efforts on this was to benefit students, not myself.’ (F1–8)

4.2. Factor 2: personal benefits in terms of job opportunities

Factor 2 included six male participants and accounted for 12% of explained variance. Five of the six were from three different institutions in Tanzania, and one was from Ghana. Two were associate professors, three were lecturers and one was an IT officer. They were all from science and technology backgrounds, including IT, environmental science, mathematics and biodiversity conservation. As Figure 3 shows, these participants valued the personal gains they accrued by participating in the EEISHEA project, and they significantly highlighted the project’s benefits to their future career development through improved access to job opportunities and academic promotion.

These participants particularly valued their learning gains (#4/4) and appreciated being exposed to new ways of thinking about engineering education (#30/3C*). They believed that PBL is suitable for addressing the demands of professional practice (#10/3D), and they enjoyed their initial PBL practice (#17/1D). Prospectively, they would proceed further with PBL implementation (#13/2). In contrast to the other two factors, their drivers for PBL practices were related to their prioritisation of future job opportunities (#25/4D*) and enhancing their qualifications for academic promotion (#2/3D*). As one participant elaborated:

PBL is a good methodology to improve my teaching … it is also good for my academic promotion and future … It is more effective and sustainable to extend the change to the institution when more people can see the benefits.

On the negative side, as with Factor 1, participants also gave low ranks to relational and institutional factors, including their colleagues’ interest in joining future PBL implementation (#3/−2), students’ sharing their belief in the benefits of PBL (#27/−1), their own receiving sufficient information about institutions’ plans to implement PBL (#21/−4), their receiving an institutional request to further implement PBL (#9/−2) and their receiving the required institutional support (#18/−2D). For them, these were related to the current situation in which there is no common understanding of the institutions’ educational goals (#7/−1) or culture of encouraging innovative teaching methods (#5/−1C*).

These choices were related to a lack of institutional readiness to change without the required budget and resources, as most of them explained. As one participant said: ‘I am not sure whether my university is ready to support this (change) at this stage of conditions.’ (F2–4)

In contrast to all other factors, these participants reported low belief in a societal trend toward adopting pedagogical methods that suit the younger generation’s learning needs (#12/4D*). To change the culture at a larger scope, one has to start by changing individuals. As one participant put it:

Our institute does not have a strategic plan to implement PBL yet; however, the university adopts a student-centred approach … The change starts with individuals, so all participants in this programme should start changing themselves. Then they may impact changes to their department and finally the entire university. (F2–2)

4.3. Factor 3: institutional support leading to confidence in PBL implementation

Six participants (two female and four male, from four different universities in Ghana and Tanzania) significantly loaded on Factor 3, with an explained variance of 8%. This group included one professor, one associate professor, three lecturers and a librarian. They had diverse backgrounds in IT, computer science, food science and technology, science education, biodiversity conservation and information literacy, and they were currently working on engineering faculties as engineering educators. Unlike the Factor 1 and Factor 2 participants, Factor 3 participants emphasised the importance of institutional aspects such as leadership interest, collegial support and the provision of resources, as shown in Figure 4. When given such support, they developed confidence in their own and their institution’s capability to implement PBL.

In concrete terms, these participants considered the most important items to be institutional leaders’ interest in extending PBL implementation (#15/4D*), their understanding of the appropriateness of PBL (#8/1D*) and their understanding of what it means to implement PBL (#11/1D*), in addition to colleagues’ interests in joining in future PBL implementation (#3/2D*). This may be due to their belief that there is a common understanding of educational goals in their particular institution (#24/1D*) and their experience of improvement in students’ learning performance during an initial PBL pilot project (#6/1C*).

In this context, they underlined their confidence in their own capability to implement PBL (#26/3D*) and their institutions’ capacity to implement PBL with the necessary resources (#24/2D*). As one participant elaborated:

Since my leaders are willing to support PBL and I have a passion for training others and am inspired to transform my teaching and teaching and learning in general at my university, I find it is possible to achieve the goal. (F3–2)

Furthermore, in contrast to others, participants who loaded on Factor 3 believed that the implementation of PBL provides opportunities for students to connect to the community. (#16/4D*). As one participant explained: ‘A current problem facing our students after graduation is employability. Using PBL will improve their capability and skills to become solvers for real societal problems.’ (F3–1)

On the negative side, in contrast to Factor 2, these participants considered certain aspects of personal benefits to be least important for them: they did not see PBL implementation as beneficial for future job opportunities (#25/−1D*) and were not interested in rewards for implementing new teaching practices (#14/−4D). As one participant mentioned, a ‘reward is not a sustainable way to make PBL a way to go.’ (F3–2)

Constructive feedback on teaching practices from colleagues (#29/−4) was also not considered important by these participants, which possibly relates to a lack of a system supporting peer observation and feedback for teaching.

Unlike the other two factors, these participants did not relate their PBL implementation to inspiration from participating in the EEISHEA project (#20/−2D*), nor did they relate their own learning experience in the EEISHEA project to new teaching practices (#31/−2D*). One participant explained: ‘I am already motivated to do my best in my teaching, so I did not need this EEISHEA project to inspire me.’ (F3–3).

Another reason provided by some participants was that they did not join the initial EEISHEA project at the beginning but were only recruited through a local network in the extended stage of the EEISHEA professional training programme:

I was not part of prior EEISHEA, but we have participated in this PBL training project, thus we have the experience to share. I appreciated this invitation which enriched my knowledge and skills through the network. (F2–2)

Another participant reflected on the learning experiences they gained from the EEISHEA project:

We need to pilot further all the curricula approved by senates of participating universities from Tanzania and Ghana and [to be] accredited by respective commissions for universities. Also, we need to evaluate the piloted curricula after piloting, before replicating to all curricula in our universities through the south-south collaboration of universities and with industry. (F3–1)

4.6. Consensus

Despite the divergence among the three viewpoints, eight statements were identified as achieving significant consensus, as Table 4 shows. Statements 32, 30, 22, 6 and 2 were ranked as particularly important, with less importance placed on statements 5, 14 and 28.

Table 4. Consensus statements.

No.	Statement	Factor 1		Factor 2		Factor 3
		Q SV	Z-score	Q SV	Z-score	Q SV	Z-score
2	My students react positively to an initial PBL piloting experience.	0	0.161	0	0.292	0	0.433
5	My institution has the culture to encourage innovative teaching.	−1	−0.747	−1	−0.578	−1	−0.428
6	My students’ learning performance is improved with an initial PBL piloting experience.	1	0.381	0	0.493	1	0.584
14*	There are rewards for implementing new teaching practices at my institution.	−3	−1.5	−3	−1.38	−4	−2.1
22*	There is a need to change the prevailing teaching methods in my institution.	1	0.6	1	0.521	0	0.12
28*	My students’ engagement in learning is improved with an initial PBL piloting experience.	0	0.19	0	−0.258	−1	−0.42
30	I appreciate new ways of thinking about education.	2	1.143	2	0.942	2	0.906
32	PBL is appropriate for solving the current students’ learning problems that I have experienced.	4	1.674	3	1.273	3	1.365

* Statements flagged with an asterisk are significant at p < 0.05.

5. Discussion

The findings of the Q methodology analysis indicate three significantly different viewpoints among African engineering educators regarding their professional learning and preparedness for educational change through a PBL-based pedagogical training programme. Respectively, these different viewpoints underline different aspects of learning for change: 1) improvement of teaching competence and student benefits in terms of employability; 2) personal benefits in terms of job opportunities; and 3) institutional support leading to confidence in PBL implementation.

In line with previous studies (Du et al. 2020a; 2020b, 2021; 2022a), these results provide further evidence that PBL can be an efficient way to organise professional development activities that support engineering educators’ meaningful learning across all three domains of professional learning for change. The study results also indicate that professional learning for change is a complex matter for engineering educators (Morrison 2008; Myers 2018). All three interrelated domains of professional learning for educational change were addressed by the participants. Specifically, individual and relational domains were highlighted by Factor 1 participants, who perceived teaching competency development through student improvement as important. Such results are in line with previous studies on the importance of teachers’ learning being driven by their own motivation and engagement, with student development as an outcome of these efforts (Abdi and Asadi 2015; Bouwma-Gearhart 2012; Chuchalin, Malmqvist, and Tayurskaya 2016; Du et al. 2020a; Kotlyarova et al. 2021).

While they also valued personal domains, Factor 2 participants prioritised the benefits of implementing PBL for their personal future career development and potential job opportunities, indicating the importance of engineering educators’ seeing long-term benefits as an important source of their engagement with professional learning (Du et al. 2022a; Lucas and Goodman 2015). Factor 3 participants highly valued the contextual domain, emphasising the importance of support from managers and institutions for continuous professional development and sustainable educational change, as has also been observed in previous research (Estes et al. 2019).

In addition, this study’s results have a few practical implications. First, future professional development activity organisers should encourage consideration of individuals’ prior experiences, given the diversity of their institutions, country-defined policies and socioeconomic conditions (Leibowitz et al. 2015; Mushemeza 2016). Further, understanding individual struggles is an important way for professional development activity organisers to support educators in the development of coping strategies. Second, it is equally essential to share a common understanding of educational changes among professional development organisers, university leadership and engineering faculty (Du et al. 2022a). To support learning for change, a supportive policy is needed (Du et al. 2022a), such as optimising the incentive system and providing a reward-and-recognition system to further motivate individuals to engage in professional learning for educational change (Chaaban, Al-Thani, and Du 2021; Du and Lundberg 2021). To gain top-down support from university leadership, professional and pedagogical development activities could also engage university leadership and help them understand the benefits and importance of educational changes to generate sustainable, proactive support for professional learning for change (Du et al. 2022a; Guerra and Spliid 2018; Kotlyarova et al. 2021). Third, the results reveal that the provision of institutional support influences engineering educators’ perspectives and can thus promote continuous educational change, which can be related to contextualised conditions (Leibowitz et al. 2015). This highlights the need to provide academic autonomy from a policy-making point of view in order to maximise the effect of educational change (Chimbunde and Kgari-Masondo 2021; Yidana and Aboagye 2018). If they are provided with a supportive policy, opportunities for pedagogical training and resources for the practice of new teaching and learning approaches, engineering educators may have higher confidence in their own capability and that of their institutions to implement PBL (Chaaban, Al-Thani, and Du 2021; Du and Lundberg 2021; Felder, Brent, and Prince 2015; Sabah and Du 2018). Accordingly, the study outcome indicates that future cross-institutional collaboration initiatives for professional development must take institutional and societal factors into account to support sustainable change (Lyngdorf et al. 2022). For future Erasmus programmes, professional learning designs from Euro-central perspectives to help African universities are far from enough. It is important to take into account local philosophy, social background and economic conditions when designing professional learning programmes for African educators.

This study has a few limitations that should be addressed in future studies. Firstly, while the study provides the overall subjective views of the participants both individually and collectively, 12 of the 40 participants’ opinions were revealed to be individually different from the others and were not interpreted in this study due to the scope of the Q methodology. These opinions could be further explored in follow-up studies using, for example, the format of individual interviews. Secondly, the study results remain conditioned due to the unpredictability of professional learning characteristics. The participants’ learning is reflected through the negotiation of their actual practice, which can be further influenced by other relational and contextual factors. Participants with different levels of institutional support could face different challenges to PBL practice. A fuller understanding of this requires more empirical and longitudinal studies using different research methods to further document participants’ actual practices as an outcome of professional learning and educational change. Thirdly, while the application of Q methodology illustrates participants’ common viewpoints, various other research methods, such as interviews and surveys, might offer deeper or broader insights into engineering educators’ perspectives on professional learning for educational change and their preparedness for PBL implementation. In addition, further studies could address interactional aspects of educators’ learning, such as gender, institutional context and societal context, to document the outcomes of cross-institutional capacity-building programmes.

Last but not least, while addressing the so-called global challenges for pedagogical development in HE, the study was limited by its Eurocentric approach to exploring phenomena that were embedded in highly different historical and socio-cultural-economic conditions. Future studies are strongly urged to take into consideration local non-western epistemologies and the connection with African educational philosophy, for example, highlighting the value of a community-driven approach that draws strengths from decolonising curriculum design and implementation by listening to the marginalised teachers’ representations of challenges (Chimbunde and Kgari-Masondo 2021). Only respecting and connecting with theoretical frameworks outside the umbrella of Western dominance can sustainably and collaboratively build a better future in countries that are trying to shake off the constraints of history (Chimbunde and Kgari-Masondo 2021; Leibowitz et al. 2015; Provini 2019).

6. Conclusion

This study illustrates African engineering educators’ perspectives on their professional learning for educational change in an international PBL-based professional development programme. The framework of professional development, which was proposed in the authors’ prior studies (Du et al. 2022a) and further validated in an African context, adds to the understanding of engineering educators’ subjectivity in professional learning for educational change in the individual, relational and contextual domains. Q methodology was used for data collection and analysis. Three main viewpoints were identified, revealing the importance of providing support at the individual, interpersonal and institutional levels in order to improve engineering educators’ professional learning opportunities and increase their preparedness for implementing new learning methods such as PBL.

In future capacity-building programmes, it is important to address variations in institutional cultures and structures in order to support sustainable transformation. Further work should also reflect an openness to connecting Western theoretical dominance with non-western philosophy to better explore socio-cultural-economic contextual features.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Bente Nørgaard

Bente Nørgaard, an Associate Professor with the Center for Problem-Based Learning in Engineering Science and Sustainability, Aalborg University, under the auspices of UNESCO and associated with the cross-faculty Institute of Advanced Studies in PBL. She has a background in problem-based learning with a particular interest in continuing education within STEM, capacity building, and management of change. Dr. Nørgaard is a Council Member of The International Association for Continuing Engineering Education and the Chair of SEFI's special interest group on Continuing Engineering Education and Lifelong Learning. She is a member of the management group for the Danish Network for Engineering Education (IUPN).

Juebei Chen

Juebei Chen, a postdoc. Researcher in engineering education from UNESCO Centre for Problem-Based Learning in Engineering Science and Sustainability (UCPBL Centre) at Aalborg University, Aalborg, Denmark, in 2022. Her current interests are the learning experience of students, learning outcomes in a PBL context, PBL training for engineering staff, and gender issues in engineering education.

Carla Kornelia Smink

Carla Kornelia Smink, an Associate Professor Department of Sustainability and Planning, Aalborg University. Her current research focus is on sustainable development, environmental technology development, ecological modernization, and entrepreneurship and innovation in higher education.

Aida Guerra

Aida Guerra, the Vice-Director of the Aalborg Centre for PBL in Engineering Science and Sustainability under the auspices of UNESCO and an Associate Professor within the field of Problem-Based, Project-Organized Learning (PBL), and Engineering Education for Sustainable Development with the Department of Planning and the Institute of Advanced Studies in PBL, Aalborg University. She is also an active member of several engineering education organizations. Her current research focus is on PBL, curriculum and pedagogical development, readiness for change, integration of sustainability in engineering education, student agency for sustainability, and competencies.

Xiangyun Du

Xiangyun Du, a Professor and the Vice Director of the UNESCO Centre for Problem-Based Learning in Engineering Science and Sustainability, Aalborg University, Aalborg, Denmark. She has over 180 publications on pedagogical development, particularly for problem-based and project-based learning (PBL) methods, in fields ranging from engineering, medicine, and health to foreign languages and teacher education in diverse social, cultural, and educational contexts. She has also done research on gender and intercultural teaching and learning issues surrounding learning and PBL.