Cet article tente une analyse des interactions générées par la relation pédagogique entre un tuteur et des apprenants en formation à distance à la lumière de la sociologie interactionniste d'Erving Goffman. Ce faisant, il cherche à éclairer ce qui caractérise ce type d'interactions, et questionne la notion de « distance ».

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During 3 years, we have used the Force Concept Inventory (FCI) to assess the progress of our First-Year students in Engineering in mastering the concepts of Newtonian Physics and to compare the efficiency of two teaching methods, courses and drills versus Problem-Based Learning. If both methods lead to quite similar deceptive results, the detailed analysis of the response to each question of the test allowed us to identify our students' most common misconceptions. This paper presents this research and discusses our findings.

In this experiment, a Problem-based learning methodology (PBL) is used to teach physics to engineering students. The efficiency of PBL is measured and compared to traditional teaching methods. Our experiment shows no major differences in terms of knowledge acquisition, conceptualization and physical reasoning. On the other hand, PBL shows an influence on cross-knowledge acquisition. Implementing PBL with large groups of students has faced many challenges. PBL is a highly destabilizing and demanding method for students. To make them accept the method and the effort, PBL method has been adapted with closer guidance from tutors. A preparatory program has also been set up. The experiment also shows that the lecturers' acceptance and understanding are key success factors. It is a long process for experienced lecturers to move from a teacher-centered teaching method to a student-centered pedagogy. Lecturers need strong support and guidance from PBL experts but also from the faculty itself. More complex timetables have been designed to manage large groups of students with limited staff. The constraint is to maintain the same number of teaching hours as for traditional teaching. If difficulties have appeared throughout this experiment, benefits have been noticed over time. Students develop problem solving methodologies as well as communication and organizational skills. These benefits have been noticed by companies and students' acceptance has improved over time.

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