S. Alkhafaji, UCL, UK

The adoption of online learning in medical education has been increasing in popularity. This is especially true since the appearance of the unprecedented Coronavirus Disease 2019 pandemic (COVID-19) (Darras et al., 2021), which created a sudden and noticeable shift towards the exclusive usage of online learning environment as the main source of medical education (Dost et al., 2020). Delivering CBL virtually to medical students is an exciting educational prospect. Although there is a plethora of literature on CBL within medical education, there is a paucity of literature within the contexts of electronic CBL(e-CBL), where the literature seems to be scant and unfocused. Therefore, the aim of this literature review is to evaluate the role and significance of e-CBL within medication education.  This will be used to inform medical schools of the value of using e-CBL to teach 21st century medical students.

Overall, the delivery of e-CBL to medical students has generally shown to be effective way of facilitating learning, improving learning outcomes and increasing knowledge of medical students across different specialities. There is also a satisfactory agreement between papers that students find e-CBL to be an enjoyable and flexible way of learning, which is encouraging in exceptional and emergency situations such as COVID-19 pandemic that took place where e-learning may be the only option.  Other key themes discussed in the literature review centred on the advantages and disadvantages of e-CBL and how it compares with other types of learning.

References:

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