Student access patterns for an online clinical skills procedural video library

Area of Science:

• Optometry education
• Ophthalmic clinical skills training

Background:

• A video library of optometric clinical skills was established in 2012 to support optometry student learning.
• Video usage in higher education surged during the COVID-19 pandemic and has remained elevated.

Purpose of the Study:

• To evaluate student access patterns in a clinical skills video library.
• To identify most-accessed videos and changes in access based on training stage and post-pandemic trends.

Main Methods:

• Analysis of student viewing and critique data for 71 videos from 2018-2023.
• Categorization of videos by type (gold standard, scripted errors, summary, student-generated) and clinical area (history, screening, refraction, etc.).

Main Results:

• First-year students accessed the most videos; usage decreased significantly during and after the pandemic.
• Video views declined with increasing course stage, aligning with curriculum content.
• Gold standard and student-generated videos received the highest views; scripted error videos had low engagement.

Conclusions:

• The video library was predominantly used by early-stage optometry students for self-directed learning.
• Future resources should prioritize exemplar and student-based videos and align with the curriculum.
• Further research into student and educator perspectives is needed for optimal post-pandemic integration.