PROBLEM-BASED AND CASE-BASED APPROACHES: LEARNING THROUGH REAL WORLD CHALLENGES

Abstract

Physiotherapy education goes beyond just providing knowledge of anatomy or treatment techniques. Students also need to learn how to think through clinical situations and make decisions accordingly and communicate with patients in actual patient scenarios. To facilitate this, health science education more often employs problem-based learning (PBL) and case-based learning (CBL). The two methods are linked to clinical experience and are active learning methods. This paper analyses and compares the methods, benefits and challenges of both PBL and CBL in physiotherapy education based on the existing literature. It also addresses more recent innovations like digital learning and teaching formats with different professions. According to the research, PBL enhances the students' self-directed learning, communication and evidence-based practice skills, and CBL boosts academic performance and confidence in using clinical knowledge. Both approaches appear to be equally effective as teaching techniques for fact acquisition but are effective in developing competencies for use in contemporary physiotherapy practice. They are very successful because they have trained faculty, well-designed cases and institutional support.