Objective:

To know about the students' perceptions regarding the learning acquisition quality attained by means of challenge-based learning at the university context.

Method:

A qualitative research methodology is followed to describe students' perceptions about learning through a challenge based approach. The design is a single case study. The participants were 90 from two majors at the Catholic University of Temuco, Faculty of Education. The data analysis was coded through Atlas Ti, 9.0 software.

Result:

The researchers collected the students’ criteria on two topics: first, the contribution of challenge-based learning to teacher education and, second, the prerequisite of this methodology.

Conclusions:

It is essential to introduce active methodologies in higher education as long as they favors and validate a deeper look at a reflective and metacognitive level focusing on the experimenting. The students considered that challenge-based learning promotes positive attitudes such as reciprocity, cooperation, and interaction between peers and teachers. Likewise, it favors collaborative work and autonomy, generates responsibility, students’ active participation, learning feedback and peer scaffolding.