E-learning As A Complement To Traditional Teaching Of Blindness Prevention

Abstract

 

Purpose:

 

To investigate if e-learning material increases the student knowledge level before the traditional class of blindness prevention and if help to fix this information a short period (one month) after the class.

 

Methods:

 

Fourth-years medicine students were randomly assigned to have a traditional class of blindness prevention (Traditional group = TG) or to have a traditional class of blindness prevention plus an additional e-learning material (E-learning group = ELG). The e-learning material included a PDF article about blindness prevention. This material was e-mailed one week before the traditional class. It was performed a multiple choice test (with 3 options each one) with seven questions about blindness prevention immediately before the traditional class, immediately after the class, and one month later. The questions were the same at the three tests, but with answers options distributed in different sequences. The primary outcome was immediate pretest score. The secondary outcomes were immediate posttest score and 1-month posttest score.

 

Results:

 

The sample consisted of 34 medicine students assigned to the TG and 34 assigned to the ELG. The immediate posttest score were similar in the two groups (P <0.754), but the difference of the immediate pretest score and the one month posttest were statistically significant (P < 0.001).

 

Conclusions:

 

The pretest and one month posttest results suggested that the E-learning material acts as an effective complementary tool of the traditional class on teaching of blindness prevention.  

 

Clinical Trial:

 

http://www.clinicaltrials.gov NCT01249586

 

Keywords: clinical (human) or epidemiologic studies: treatment/prevention assessment/controlled clinical trials