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Abstract Background Thoracic surgery involves complex diseases and critically ill patients, demanding doctors to integrate solid theoretical knowledge with practical skills. Clinical medical students, however, often struggle to bridge the theory-practice gap-this hinders the improvement of their professional competencies.Optimizing teaching models has thus become an urgent priority in medical education. The traditional BOPPPS model supports basic knowledge acquisition but lacks contextualized experiential connections, which limits its effectiveness in cultivating clinical reasoning.This study evaluates the effectiveness of a modified BOPPPS model (rooted in experiential learning and situated cognition theories) in thoracic surgery teaching. Its core innovation redefines the Bridge-in phase from a “theoretical bridge” to an “experiential anchor,” integrating ward visits and thoracoscopy simulation. Guided by experiential learning and situated cognition theories, this conceptual reorientation reshapes students’ cognitive schema, addressing the traditional model’s limitation of decontextualized knowledge acquisition. We verified its value by comparing it with the traditional model. Methods This study adopted a non-randomized quasi-experimental design, with group allocation based on pre-existing natural classes. A total of 96 fifth-year clinical medicine students (2019 cohort) from Binzhou Medical University were enrolled, with two intact classes assigned to the experimental group (n = 48) or control group (n = 48). The experimental group received instruction via the modified BOPPPS model, while the control group used the traditional BOPPPS model. All teaching procedures were completed within the same 300-minute timeframe to ensure methodological consistency. Results The two groups had comparable pre-course baseline scores in all assessment dimensions (all P > 0.05). After the intervention, the experimental group showed no significant difference in basic theoretical knowledge scores compared with the control group (P = 0.263), but achieved a statistically significant greater score improvement (P = 0.049, Cohen’s d = 0.32). Notably, the experimental group scored significantly higher in clinical imaging analysis ability (P = 0.021, Cohen’s d = 0.79) and comprehensive clinical application ability (P = 0.032, Cohen’s d = 0.89), with large effect sizes indicating meaningful practical differences (detailed data in Table Three). Additionally, the experimental group scored significantly higher in six dimensions of student satisfaction (course satisfaction, clinical thinking ability, etc., all P < 0.05). Conclusion In thoracic surgery teaching, the modified BOPPPS model is associated with statistically significant improvements in students’ clinical imaging analysis ability, comprehensive clinical application ability, and student satisfaction compared to the traditional model. Its core value lies in optimizing the BOPPPS framework through experiential learning principles, offering a feasible approach to alleviate the theory-practice disconnect. However, the findings are limited by the single-center design, small sample size, and lack of long-term follow-up, which restrict generalizability. Future multi-center studies with larger samples and long-term follow-up are needed to verify the model’s broader applicability in medical education.
