RESULTS: Comparison of the two groups found significant improvements in first year students’ perceptions that the PBL programme was helping them achieve university level educational outcomes. The greatest improvements, measured using Cohen’s d, were seen for items related to ‘intercultural understanding’ (d=.77); ‘critical self reflection’ (d=.60); ‘global citizenship’ (d=.52); and ‘critical intellectual inquiry’ (d=.51). Additionally, items related to ‘greater understanding of others’ (d=.36), and ‘collaboration’ (d=.33) also showed improvements. CONCLUSION: An extended induction in a fully‐integrated problem‐based learning curriculum can assist first‐year students’ transition into a PBL curriculum thereby improving programme level evaluations of the first year experience.