ABSTRACT
This chapter examines how theory–method relations shape what could, and could not, be known about problem-based learning (PBL) through the different approaches to discourse analysis used. It describes how an ethnographic perspective provided the basis for exploring the theories guiding each study as well as how the authors' purpose for each analysis shaped method, findings, and knowledge claims. One theme identified across the articles is the notion that PBL events, processes, and practices are both similar to and different from "ordinary" situations involving problems. One way of seeing the similarities and differences, of seeing how the ordinary becomes extraordinary in a PBL context, is in the work of R. Hall. Hall explicitly contrasts how having a theory is constructed in two contrasting situations: a dinner table conversation and the PBL segment on the 6-min videotape.
