In South Africa, geography education students' approach to deep learning has received little attention. Therefore the purpose of this one-shot experimental case study was to evaluate the extent to which first-year geography education students used deep or surface learning in an embedded problem-based learning (PBL) format. The researchers measured students' approach to learning in this PBL format in two groups of first-year students (2012 and 2013), using the standardized revised study process questionnaire adapted to the PBL context. The study provided evidence to suggest that the implementation of PBL could help to foster deep learning among first-year geography education students.