The objective of this article was to improve the quality of clinical teaching in ophthalmology and innovate traditional teaching methods. According to their specialty,123 students of Grade 2002 were randomly divided to problem-based learning (PBL) group and lecture-based learning (LBL) group. The teaching effectiveness of two teaching methods were compared and appraised after the students were lectured by PBL and LBL as teaching methods in ophthalmology, respectively. The results showed that the average score, the number of students with high score and the fine rate of teaching effectiveness appraisal targets in PBL group were significant higher than that in LBL group. The results indicated that the teaching effectiveness of PBL was better than that of LBL and PBL should be extensively applied in clinical teaching in ophthalmology.