Research in PBL - where to from here for dentistry?

Brief history of PBL in dental educationProblem-based learning (PBL) was first introduced into medical education at McMaster University in Canada in the 1960s and it then spread to many other medical schools.Its introduction into dental education occurred much later, with schools in Sweden, Australia, USA, Hong Kong, Ireland and the United Kingdom implementing PBL-based curricula in the 1990s.Since then, PBL has been introduced into many dental programmes around the world.In most cases, rather than full PBL programmes, hybrid programmes have been developed or PBL has been introduced into one or more courses, alongside other more traditionally presented courses.Since its introduction, PBL has been a controversial topic.Those who first embraced the approach generally became strong supporters, while others remained sceptical.Most of the research that has been carried out on PBL is reported in the medical education literature, although there have been a few studies relating to dentistry that have been published, mainly in the European Journal of Dental Education (EJDE) and the Journal of Dental Education.(JDE).The main topics covered in these publications will be summarised later in this paper.