Development and Assessment of a Three‐Dimensional Tooth Morphology Quiz for Dental Students

Abstract

Tooth morphology has a pivotal role in the dental curriculum and provides one of the important foundations of clinical practice. To supplement tooth morphology teaching a three‐dimensional (3D) quiz application (app) was developed. The 3D resource enables students to study tooth morphology actively by selecting teeth from an interactive quiz, modify their viewpoint and level of zoom. Additionally, students are able to rotate the tooth to obtain a 3D spatial understanding of the different surfaces of the tooth. A cross‐over study was designed to allow comparison of students’ results after studying with the new application or traditionally with extracted/model teeth. Data show that the app provides an efficient learning tool and that students’ scores improve with usage (18% increase over three weeks, P < 0.001). Data also show that student assessment scores were correlated with scores obtained while using the app but were not influenced by the teaching modality initially accessed (r2 = 0.175, P < 0.01). Comparison of the 2016 and 2017 class performance shows that the class that had access to the app performed significantly better on their final tooth morphology assessment (68.0% ±15.0 vs. 75.3% ±13.4, P < 0.01). Furthermore, students reported that the 3D application was intuitive, provided useful feedback, presented the key features of the teeth, and assisted in learning tooth morphology. The 3D tooth morphology app thus provides students with a useful adjunct teaching tool for learning dental anatomy. Anat Sci Educ 00: 000–000. © 2018 American Association of Anatomists.

Educational Interventions to Improve Dental Anatomy Carving Ability of Dental Students: A Systematic Review

“…They may be applied to different contexts or learning experiences, allowing students from different health fields to emphasize specific anatomical demands and relate differently to the digital technologies based on their background (Kenway and Bakr, 2018). When adapted to a context that involves flipped classrooms and blended‐learning concepts, they allow students to be more active and responsible for their learning process (de Azevedo et al, 2015; Kenway and Bakr, 2018; Lone et al, 2018, 2019).…”

Structured Quiz for Teaching of CVM Stages to the Undergraduate Orthodontic Students

“…[4][5][6] It has been found that quizzing is as an effective method of teaching to small group of students. 7 Cervical vertebral maturation is an important orthodontic topic for teaching to undergraduate dental students. There are several methods of analyzing cervical vertebral maturation.…”

Can Three‐Dimensional Visualization Technologies be More Effective than Cadavers for Dental Anatomy Education?

“…Interestingly, neither Maggio et al 2012, nor Al-Thobity et al 2017included in their studies a comparison of digital 3D models with cadaveric teeth, which are considered as the best teaching modality (Cantin et al, 2015), as it was recognized by Lone et al (2019). In fact, could digital 3D models be superior to cadaveric teeth, since they were not proved clearly superior to other, less strong, teaching methods?…”

“…It was our pleasure to read the article by Lone et al (2019), who developed and assessed a three-dimensional (3D) application for dental anatomy education. The authors concluded that the application was of equivalent educational value with extracted teeth, while they stated that computer-based 3D models enhance teaching outcomes.…”

“…Given that cadaveric teeth are considered as the best dental anatomy teaching modality (Cantin et al, 2015), it seems that dental students prefer "physical" to "digital" learning experience, in terms of anatomy education. Since the educational use of extracted teeth is correlated with hygiene and ethical issues (Lone et al, 2019), 3D printing is a method which seems to combine the physical experience with the accurate illustration of anatomical structures, avoiding such issues.…”