Investigating students' ideas about wavefront aberrometry

We describe a qualitative study of student understanding of the functions of the human eye and the resources used in understanding wavefront aberrometry, a relatively new method of diagnosing vision defects. Twelve students enrolled in an introductory physics class participated in a semi-structured clinical interview in which the functions of the eye, traditional diagnosis methods such as the eye chart, and wavefront aberrometry were discussed. Results from this study indicate that students do not initially understand the subjective nature of traditional diagnosis techniques and that the use of physical models of the eye and aberrometer can facilitate the transfer of prior knowledge to these concepts.