Abstract
The innovative Eye Movement Modelling Examples (EMMEs) method can be used in medicine as an educational training tool for the assessment and verification of students and professionals. Our work was intended to analyse the possibility of using eye tracking tools to verify the skills and training of people engaged in laboratory medicine on the example of parasitological diagnostics. Professionally active laboratory diagnosticians working in a multi-profile laboratory (non-parasitological) (n = 16), laboratory diagnosticians no longer working in this profession (n = 10), and medical analyst students (n = 56), participated in the study. The studied group analysed microscopic images of parasitological preparations made with the cellSens Dimension Software (Olympus) system. Eye activity parameters were obtained using a stationary, video-based eye tracker Tobii TX300 which has a 3-ms temporal resolution. Eye movement activity parameters were analysed along with time parameters. The results of our studies have shown that the eye tracking method is a valuable tool for the analysis of parasitological preparations. Detailed quantitative and qualitative analysis confirmed that the EMMEs method may facilitate learning of the correct microscopic image scanning path. The analysis of the results of our studies allows us to conclude that the EMMEs method may be a valuable tool in the preparation of teaching materials in virtual microscopy. These teaching materials generated with the use of eye tracking, prepared by experienced professionals in the field of laboratory medicine, can be used during various training, simulations and courses in medical parasitology and contribute to the verification of education results, professional skills, and elimination of errors in parasitological diagnostics.
Highlights
A significant increase in interest in eye tracking methods in medicine has been observed recently
Education materials prepared with the use of eye tracking technology by specialists and experts can be used to teach practical skills in microscopic image analysis
The eye tracking method would allow students, young medics and people who did not work in their profession after their studies to learn the correct manner of scanning and analysing microscopic specimens
Summary
A significant increase in interest in eye tracking methods in medicine has been observed recently. The study of eye movement activity conducted with the use of state-ofthe-art eye tracking technology can be a valuable tool in preparing teaching materials for parasitology education and a tool that can be used to evaluate and verify the work of students, graduates, and specialists in all health professions [1,2,3]. Eye tracking studies are used in clinical education, comparison of professional skills of young physicians and specialists (e.g., in radiology), the analysis of databases as a tool to identify priority information important in clinical decision-making, and the assessment of surgical skills [10,11,12,13,14,15]. Our work aims to explore the possibility of using eye tracking tools in virtual education in the parasitology and verification of skills of students and people engaged in laboratory medicine. The second objective is to assess the correct species identification of the parasite (i.e., selecting the correct answer from among the five options given)
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