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Introduction
Postgraduate strategic studies programs are prime learning environments for the integration of problem-based learning (PBL) pedagogy, as faculty and staff are charged with preparing students to adapt to an ever-changing global security landscape. Like other learning environments where PBL is effectively used, such as medicine and law (Houghton, 2023; Liu et al., 2023), the stakes are high. Graduates of strategic studies programs advance to leadership roles with increasing levels of influence and responsibility for national security in their respective countries. This kind of education necessitates a focus on simulations as well as historical and contemporary case studies, in which students are asked to confront complex real-world problems, widely used at both the undergraduate and graduate levels (Hunzeker and Harkness, 2014).
Problem-based learning both motivates students to seek out a deeper understanding of disciplinary concepts and requires students to make and defend decisions (Duch et al., 2001). Though studied in a variety of professional contexts – particularly business and medicine (Brownell and Jameson, 2004; Duch et al., 2001; Martyn et al., 2014; van den Bossche et al., 2004) – before now, PBL had yet to be rigorously studied in the context of postgraduate strategic studies programs.
During a ten-month master’s degree-granting academic program in the United States, we conducted a pilot study to explore how implementing a problem-based learning activity in a required foundational course related to multinational students’ ability to apply what they learned in the curriculum to their formulation of a strategy addressing a real-world global security scenario. In strategic studies, strategy, or strategic thinking, exists to address difficult national security and military challenges. It entails the creation of new courses of action and their associated frameworks. Finally, strategy is an activity that, in professional national security settings, is done with others; therefore, strategic performance must be evaluated not only individually, but in its full interpersonal dimensions (Perez, 2018). Strategy is also problem-solving and, as Carr (2024) describes, this means strategists must “first diagnose them [problems] and identify and interrogate their key dispositions through probing, sensemaking, and seeking feedback” (124). These are all activities that happen in the classroom, oftentimes together with classmates.
This pilot study allowed for an unprecedented look at strategic performance for postgraduate students while...