Linking Theory to Practice: Case-Based Learning in Health Professions Education

Case-based learning (CBL) is a long-established pedagogical method in higher education and has also emerged as a key teaching strategy in health professions education. With a heavy emphasis on bridging theory to practice, CBL has been proven effective as a means of transferring declarative and procedural knowledge, fostering critical thinking and clinical reasoning, improving collaborative learning and life-long learning skills, and engaging students in real-world scenarios in health professions education. This chapter first introduces the definitions and features of CBL as a pedagogical approach in the context of health professions education, as well as its comparison with problem-based learning (PBL). The second part of this chapter reviews current literature examining the effectiveness of CBL in health professions education, such as how CBL influences student knowledge and skills development, the effectiveness of CBL as compared to other pedagogical approaches, and how technologies can support CBL in multiple learning contexts including basic science classrooms, simulation, and clinical settings. This chapter concludes with some implications for how to design CBL activities in both face-to-face and online environments in health professions education.