Evaluation of eLearning for the teaching of undergraduate ophthalmology at medical school: a randomised controlled crossover study.

摘要

To compare ophthalmology teaching delivered by eLearning with traditional lectures, in terms of undergraduate performance and satisfaction. Randomised controlled crossover study at King's College London Medical School with 245 third year medical students. The ophthalmology syllabus was divided into ten topics. Five topics were randomised to be taught by traditional lectures and five by electronic learning (eLearning). For the second rotation of students the topics were crossed over, so that those topics taught by traditional lectures were taught by eLearning and vice versa. At the end of each rotation the students sat an optional online mock examination containing 100 questions (ten on each topic). Students' examination performance was compared between the two teaching methods. Student satisfaction was assessed using an online satisfaction survey. Outcome measures were the mean percentage of correct answers across all ten topics, student satisfaction and self-assessed knowledge. The mean examination score for questions taught by eLearning was 58% (95% CI, 55.7-59.6), versus 55% (95% CI 53.1-56.8) for traditional lectures (P?=?0.047). Across all topics students were more satisfied with eLearning than traditional lectures, with 87% (95% CI 84.5-88.4) rating eLearning as 'excellent' or 'good' versus 65% (95% CI 62.0-67.4) for lectures (p?