Abstract
This study demonstrates that while problem-based learning (PBL) may promote many of the abilities currently high on the agenda in British higher education in the 1990s, the wider implications of the implementation of PBL are more complex and far reaching.

This multi site study qualitative study adopted a methodology which was both emergent and collaborative in its design and process. The focus of the study was to: examine the expectations and experiences of staff and students in different professional and educational environments who are involved in using PBL in some way.
 
Disjunction is a concept seen by many as a starting point for learning. (Jarvis, 1987; Weil, 1989). The findings of this study demonstrate that PBL may foster disjunction in students’ lives. Students are offered through PBL the opportunity to own their learning experiences and develop independence in enquiry.  It is these very opportunities which seemed to prompt different forms of disjunction.

This research extends the concept of disjunction through an exploration of enabling and disabling disjunction in relation to three different “stances”.  These comprise the notions of Personal stance, Pedagogical stance and Interactional stance.  Together the three stances encapsulate a holistic view of learner experience, a model termed ‘Dimensions of Learner Experience’.  Data revealed that PBL appeared to prompt, for some students, through enabling/disabling disjunctions, the construction, exploration,transformation of, and reflection upon, their learner identity which resulted in transitions within personal, pedagogical and interactional stances.

The study concludes by arguing that ‘Dimensions of Learner Experience’ offers a framework for understanding experiences of PBL whilst also asserting that learning through PBL may prompt reality construction and transformation in students’ past, present and future learning.