Abstract:

Introduction:
In the Laboratory of Clinical Exploration Methods, a fourth-year subject of the Optics and Optometry degree from the University of Valencia, we teach the operation of devices that evaluate color vision, contrast sensitivity and visual field.
In previous years, student learning was evaluated with a written exam. As a result of poor grades obtained by students, especially due to the fact of examining a practical part in writing, we decided to change the methodology and try a more practical one.
The aim of this project is the preparation, by the students, of a manual of a psychophysical device through collaborative work and peer teaching approaches.

Methodology:
The students, working in teams, drew up a reasoned manual for one of the 8 clinical devices in the syllabus. The activity was proposed in a blended learning mode. The on-site laboratory part is divided in two sessions separated four weeks in time. In the first session, the devices to be analyzed were randomly drawn and exhaustively explored by the students. In the second session, the student could record or photograph everything that was necessary to make the written document and video.
For the online part, we prepared some sessions, where the students could review the manuals of their classmates in the Moodle platform of the University of Valencia. These sessions had a duration of one week. Each student had to ask, at least, 2 questions for two different instruments, to clarify doubts about the explanation or to highlight any gap in the manual. In addition, they had to adequately answer the questions received about their own user manual. Finally, learning results were evaluated by an online test with 30 questions.
With this activity, we intended to promote cooperation and collaboration among the students and, at the same time, increase their training, by promoting dialogue and enriching interactions.

Results:
All groups presented the user manual in time, formulated pertinent questions and opened discussions in the forums of some instruments. Most of them answered with good criteria the doubts raised by their classmates and those that were not well resolved were corrected by the teachers assigned to the project. All members of each group participated in the responses, except for two who dropped the subject.
All the videos were very creative. Students used tools such as cartoons, subtitles, background music, perception simulations and overlapping images to show both the patient’s and the clinic’s viewpoint, among others.
The results obtained from the test from 54 students who took the exam, out of a total of 56 were 15% A+, 7% A, 30% B, 18% C, 20% D, 4% E and 6% F.

Conclusions:
The project was very well accepted by students who have been able to create very instructive written and audiovisual manuals, with the appropriate scientific language. Since the videos are very well structured, contain all the necessary information and it is very easy to follow the steps, for the next years we will consider eliminating the written manual. The follow-up of the questions and answers in the forums and the resulting test grades shows that the content learning has been good.
This activity prompts students to reflect on the basic concepts that guide the operation of the devices. Students learn to work in groups and develop the ability to transmit knowledge to specialized audiences, gaining awareness in the process of the social role the profession of optometrist also has.

Keywords:

Peer assessment, laboratory, user manual, psychophysics, clinical device.