Who am I? How Sustainability-Oriented Problem-Based Learning Shapes Students’ Personal, Disciplinary, and Professional identity

Paper in proceeding, 2025

This study explores how sustainability-oriented problem-based learning (PBL)impacts students’ identity. Through twelve interviews with master’s students from three Nordicuniversities, we identified changes in students’ personal, disciplinary, and professionalidentities. Our analysis revealed that these identities were impacted in four ways: reinforcing,deepening, broadening or reorienting. Deepening and broadening were the most common,suggesting PBL’s potential in fostering greater self-awareness and a more profoundunderstanding of students’ roles and engagement with societal challenges.