The study revealed three interrelated sets of concepts that seemed to arise from PBL.  These are termed ‘Dimensions of Learner Experience’ and comprise three ‘stances’ namely, Personal stance, Pedagogical stance and Interactional stance.  Together the three stances encapsulate a  multifaceted view of learner experience. Thus the learner is seen to experience three differing stances which operate simultaneously and contain a number of discrete but
interrelated domains.  However a learner may only be within one domain of each stance at any one time.
 
 

Dimensions of Learner Experience arose from this study as three interrelated concepts which emerged from accounts of students’ experiences of PBL.  Students spoke of these experiences predominantly in terms of the ways they saw themselves ‘in relation’ to the learning context, their views of themselves as learners, their relationships with peers.
 

Hence personal, pedagogical and interactional stances have been used to denote these interrelated concepts.  Each stance comprises a number of domains.  The learner is seen to experience three differing stances which operate simultaneously and contain a number of discrete but interrelated domains.

Movement (Transition), defined as a shift in learner experience caused by a challenge to the person’s life-world, within each stance is not seen to be developmentally progressive towards a higher level of existence but instead movement is seen as a shift  away from the learner’s current way of understanding.  Transitions are not linear but recursive.  They involve
revisiting and redefining knowledge processes and experiences, rather than necessarily refining them, although the latter may also occur.  Transitions may therefore be towards either a greater or a diminished sense of integration or disjunction within the domain. Movement may also involve a shift from one domain to another, which will also involve proceeding towards or away from a sense of disjunction or integration.
 
 
The components of  Dimensions of Learner Experience, namely learner stances, are summarized below.
 
 

The model of Dimensions of Learner Experience
 

Personal stance comprises five domains: ‘fragmentation’, ‘discovering my self’, ‘defining my future self’, ‘placing myself in relation to my ‘life-world’, and ‘re-placing myself: knowing the world differently’.
 

The domains within pedagogical stance are ‘reproductive pedagogy’, ‘strategic pedagogy’, ‘pedagogical autonomy’ and ‘reflective pedagogy’.
 
 

Interactional stance is used here to capture the way in which a learner interacts with others within a learning situation.  It refers to the relationships between students within groups, and staff-student relationships at both an individual, and a group level.  Thus interactional stance
encompasses the way in which students interpret the way they as individuals, and others with whom they learn, construct meaning in relation to one another.  The way in which one student may theorize about another student within a group setting reflects his/her interactional stance as does the way in which students act and speak as they interact with one another.
Interactional stance is also a notion which encompasses the means by which students engage with, and attribute meaning to, the processes which occur in groups.  It is subsequently through reflection upon these processes that students make sense of their own learning.

The domains within interactional  stance comprise the ‘ethic of individualism’, ‘validated knowing through ‘real talk’, ‘connecting experience through interaction’ and ‘transactional
dialogue’.
 

Participants in this study, it seemed, related to PBL through different dimensions of themselves.  Thus Dimensions of Learner Experience in this study came to be used as a heuristic device to make sense of personal, pedagogical and interactional concerns within a single framework. Learner stances (personal stance, pedagogical stance and interactional stance) are all trajectories of educational development which emerged from these data
possibly because these particular stances arise more readily in courses which use PBL, compared with those which do not.  However what was common to all of the students in the study was the centrality of disjunction in learning.

Disjunction is a concept seen by many as a starting point for learning (Jarvis, 1987; Weil, 1989).  In this study disjunction is used to refer to a sense of fragmentation of part of, or all of, the self.  It is characterized by anxiety and confusion, and a loss of sense of self which often results in anger and frustration.  Shifts away from disjunction always seemed to be
related to students experiencing a greater sense of integration.  Integration sometimes appeared to be characterized by students’ whole self being in equilibrium.  More often it was described as a particular component of the self being in balance.  Thus integration was experienced in very distinct ways by different students.

Jarvis (1987) believes that one of the most significant aspects of teaching adults is first to raise meaningful and relevant questions in adults’ minds, so that they can respond to the disjunction that has been created.  In this sense opportunities for experiencing disjunction may be seen as something which are created and defined by authorities.  Yet in this study, (Savin-Baden, 1996) disjunction did not only occur in relation to learning which was seen by students to be relevant and meaningful.  Disjunction occurred because, through PBL, students experienced challenges to their life-world, challenges which were at odds with, or bore little relationship
to, their current meaning systems.  Dialogue, for many students, was central to finding meaning and making sense.  Discovering meaning often occurred through groups because students were able to find meanings in the life-world of others and thus make a shift towards a greater sense of integration.