Case-Based Learning for Dysphagia Continuing Education: Participant Perceptions on Facilitators and Barriers

Case-based learning (CBL) is a valuable approach to healthcare education, fostering deeper learning, clinical reasoning, and decision-making skills, especially in complex medical conditions such as dysphagia. For speech-language pathologists who manage dysphagia, a CBL approach provides interactive hands-on learning opportunities. We examined the benefits and challenges of a CBL approach to dysphagia continuing education using participant feedback. Twenty participants who attended the Alabama Dysphagia Collective Conference in September 2023 in Tuscaloosa, AL completed a Likert-style survey evaluating attitudes and opinions toward a CBL conference design. Participants also provided open-ended feedback on the facilitators, barriers, clinical practice implementation, new skills learned, perspective gained, and future recommendations for this style of learning, reflections which were then analyzed to identify recurring themes. Participants overwhelmingly supported a CBL format, with largely positive perceptions related to conference outcomes, expectations, relevancy, and value of topics presented. Specifically, participants reported facilitators of real-world relevancy of topics, collaboration and networking opportunities, conference format and facility environment, and quality of the speakers. Challenges reported included access to resources, challenges surrounding discussions due to varied clinical backgrounds, and duration of certain parts of the conference. Overall, participants appeared to value the CBL approach to dysphagia continuing education, suggesting that it allows for applicability of real-world topics and provides networking and collaboration opportunities. Future research could expand upon the exploratory nature and limited sample size of this study and examine the implications of both the facilitators and barriers reported.