It surveys how this term is defined in the published literature — what the sources agree on, where they diverge and what remains contested — and carries its own numbered bibliography. It does not describe what we run. Programme policy is on the core pages.
Our own use of the word is often narrower than general usage; the short definition and the boundary are in the glossary, under Challenge-based learning. The review date below matters, because the literature moves.
A definitional review. Citations follow IEEE style; see References.
Abstract
Challenge-Based Learning (CBL) is a collaborative, multidisciplinary pedagogy in which learners address authentic problems defined with parties outside the classroom. Although widely associated with a 2008 industry white paper, its lineage runs through earlier engineering-education research. This article sets out the definition, the historical development, the feature that separates CBL from adjacent inquiry pedagogies, and what the empirical literature reports about implementation.
I. Definition
The most frequently cited definition characterises CBL as a multidisciplinary, collaborative, hands-on approach in which learners work with peers, teachers, and community or worldwide experts to ask good questions, build subject knowledge, and accept and solve real challenges [3].
Twelve attributes are commonly used to delimit the approach: flexible, scalable, free and open, learner-driven, authentic, global, relevant, oriented to twenty-first-century skills, technology-integrated, learner-centred, formative, and reflective [3]. Of these, learner-driven is the one that carries the greatest design weight, since it determines who selects the challenge.
II. Origins
CBL is older than its popular attribution suggests.
The earliest traced lineage runs through the VaNTH Engineering Research Center at Vanderbilt University, where “challenge-based instruction” was developed in connection with the How People Learn framework, producing the STAR Legacy Cycle — a six-stage cycle that already incorporated assessment and public sharing [2].
The term was subsequently formalised through Apple’s ACOT2 project in 2008, which sought the design principles of a twenty-first-century learning environment with a secondary-school focus; the preceding ACOT project ran from 1985 to 1995 [1], [3]. A revised implementation guide followed [4].
The familiar three-phase framework — Engage, Investigate, Act — is best understood as a compression of the six STAR phases, not an independent invention [3].
The 2008 formulation specifies a fuller cascade than three phases imply: big idea → essential question → challenge → guiding questions → guiding activities and resources → solution → action → reflection → assessment → publishing [1].
III. What distinguishes CBL
CBL descends from Problem-Based Learning and Project-Based Learning, and the literature identifies the difference precisely:
The decisive difference is the central, non-optional role of an external stakeholder in defining and judging the problem [3].
This is a stronger criterion than authenticity or open-endedness, both of which project-based learning also claims. Where the problem originates outside the institution and is evaluated by the party that holds it, the work is challenge-based; where the problem is set and assessed internally, it is a project regardless of how realistic its framing.
The same source notes that PBL and PjBL are easier to operate with younger learners, which partly explains why CBL concentrates in later education [3].
IV. Implementation: what the evidence reports
A. Disciplinary foundations precede the challenge
Interviews across five universities found CBL applied predominantly in final undergraduate years and at master’s level, on the reasoning that students are not ready before receiving base tuition in their subject [3]. One programme at Seville sequenced five weeks of conventional lectures across three integrated disciplines, closed by an examination students had to pass, before the challenge began [3]. Another places challenges in the final cycle, after basic and professional cycles, so that students arrive with disciplinary knowledge to apply [6].
B. CBL and direct instruction are complementary
Practitioners caution that course design should balance CBL against traditional knowledge exchange, arguing the two are complementary: challenge work reveals to learners why a body of knowledge matters and what they do not yet know [3].
C. Scaffolded progression
CBL is recommended as a gradual progression rather than a single course type. Component skills — group work, project structuring, stakeholder interviews — can be practised before learners encounter a fully-fledged challenge [5].
D. The staff role is the principal difficulty
The hardest transition is from expert to coach. Educational specialists judged this both crucial and difficult, and one tutor reported students refusing the CBL premise and looking to the tutor to define success criteria [8]. Coaching in CBL is theorised through cognitive apprenticeship, in which the coach models expert practice and supervises learning through guided experience in cognitive and metacognitive problem-solving [7].
E. Assessment is a design element
Assessment should be treated as a core element of CBL design rather than an afterthought, with both formative and summative assessment tied directly to the real-world challenge rather than measuring detached academic outcomes [12]. Frameworks for capturing student learning in CBL settings have been proposed to address this [11].
F. Structural constraints
In secondary education the principal reported obstacle was not student readiness but an overloaded, examination-driven curriculum with inflexible learning outcomes, leaving no room for open-ended projects [9]. Implementations also vary widely on structural axes — duration, credit load, team composition, and full- versus part-time study — which complicates comparison across cases [10].
V. Scope of adoption
CBL has been adopted at whole-institution scale, most prominently in the Tec21 model at Tecnológico de Monterrey, where it is the core teaching and learning approach across undergraduate programmes [2]. In pre-university settings it remains predominantly supplemental rather than transformative [2].
A strategic reading of the literature recommends treating CBL not as a course-level method but as a framework for making whole programmes more open, flexible and learner-centred, which requires a developmental rather than one-off perspective [2]. A dedicated reference handbook consolidates the field [13].
VI. Limitations
Two caveats bear on any claim made for CBL. First, the wide structural variation between implementations [10] means results are not straightforwardly comparable. Second, innovation and creativity generally function as explicit module descriptors or stated competencies within CBL interventions rather than as demonstrated outcomes [2] — that is, they are designed for rather than measured.
References
[1] M. H. Nichols and K. Cator, “Challenge Based Learning: Take Action and Make a Difference,” Apple Inc., Cupertino, CA, USA, White Paper, 2008.
[2] S. Perna, M. P. Recke, and M. H. Nichols, “Challenge Based Learning: A Comprehensive Survey of the Literature,” 2023.
[3] K. Dikilitaş, T. Marshall, and M. Shahverdi, A Practical Guide to Understanding and Implementing Challenge-Based Learning. Cham, Switzerland: Palgrave Macmillan, 2025, doi: 10.1007/978-3-031-67011-4.
[4] M. Nichols, K. Cator, and M. Torres, “Challenge Based Learning Guide,” Digital Promise, 2016.
[5] A. Arruti, M. Boron, P. Comellas Angulo, M. Czerniak-Reczulska, J. Jansz, D. Levy Abeliuk, K. Pytka, and P. Staaf, “Challenge-Based Learning: UNIC Teaching Guide for University Educators,” 2025.
[6] S. Romero Caballero, L. Canquiz Rincón, A. Rodríguez Toscano, A. Valencia Pérez, and G. Moreno Gómez, “Challenge-Based Learning and Design Thinking in Higher Education: Institutional Strategies for Linking Experiential Learning, Innovation, and Academic Performance,” Innovations in Education and Teaching International, 2024, doi: 10.1080/14703297.2024.2326191.
[7] S. M. Gómez Puente, K. Doulougeri, and M. Bruns, “Coaching Practices in Challenge-Based Learning: Characteristics in Students’ Projects,” 2022.
[8] N. Uthrapathi Shakila, “Interdisciplinary Challenge-Based Learning: A Descriptive Study,” 2021.
[9] B. G. Schutte, D. Bayram, J. Vennix, and J. van der Veen, “Exploring the implementation of challenge-based learning for sustainability education in Dutch secondary education: teachers’ experiences,” Environmental Education Research, 2025, doi: 10.1080/13504622.2025.2458723.
[10] N. L. Bohm, R. G. Klaassen, P. J. den Brok, and E. M. van Bueren, “Choosing Challenges in Challenge-Based Courses,” 2020.
[11] K. Helker, M. Bruns, I. M. M. J. Reymen, and J. D. Vermunt, “A framework for capturing student learning in challenge-based learning,” Active Learning in Higher Education, 2024, doi: 10.1177/14697874241230459.
[12] T. Hosseini, “Review of A Practical Guide to Understanding and Implementing Challenge-Based Learning,” Applied Linguistics and Communication, 2025, doi: 10.22034/alc.2025.542336.1021.
[13] E. Vilalta-Perdomo, J. Membrillo-Hernández, R. Michel-Villarreal, G. Lakshmi, and M. Martínez-Acosta, Eds., The Emerald Handbook of Challenge Based Learning. Bingley, U.K.: Emerald Publishing, 2022.