A Retrospective Study of Orthoptic Students’ and Teaching Experience with the Introduction of Technology Promoting a Blended Learning Environment

Purpose: Evaluation of the students’ experience and academic achievements following the introduction of online learning.

Methods and materials: In 2011, online learning activities were introduced in the teaching of the Research in Orthoptics module for final year undergraduate orthoptic students. The online learning activities were created and delivered in Moodle; an open-source online learning platform. Students from the academic year groups of 2012–13, 2013–14 and 2016–17 completed an online questionnaire. The questionnaire was divided into 6 categories (relevance, reflection, interactivity, tutor support, peer support and interpretation) with 4 questions within each category. A 5-point Likert scale was used to score each question. The sum of answers within each category ranged from 4 (negative perception) to 20 (positive perception). Student performance was assessed using the marks retrospectively for 2 years before online learning was introduced and when online learning was included.

Results: Forty-two students replied to the questionnaire with a mean age of 23.0 ± 2.3 years (range 21–32). There were 38 females (90.5%) and 4 males (9.5%). Combining the 3 academic cohorts there was a significant difference between the 6 categories of the questionnaire (p < 0.0001). Three categories obtained the same high median score of 16: relevance (range 9–20), reflection (range 11–20) and tutor support (range 12–20). Peer support resulted in the lowest median score of 13. Separation of the three academic year cohorts’ revealed significant differences for tutor support (p = 0.03). The score increased from 16 in 2012–13 and 2013–14 to 18 in 2016–17. Significant differences were found between the marks for the cohorts from 2009–10 to 2016–17 (F7,245 = 5.07: p < 0.0001). The mean mark for year group 2009–2010 was significantly less compared to 2012–13 (p < 0.0001), 2014–15 (p = 0.01) and 2015–16 (p = 0.02) and year group 2011–12’s mark significantly less than 2012/13 (p = 0.001).

Conclusions: Including online learning in the research module had a positive impact on the student experience, although more work needs to be done to improve peer support. Marks obtained by the orthoptic students have improved since the introduction of online learning suggesting that a mixture of teaching and learning methods is beneficial for students. However, more work needs to be done to provide teacher assistance in the design of online learning and blended learning approach.