Evaluation of a teaching aid for dental students

Abstract

A new teaching aid to assist undergraduate dental students to learn charting methods was developed. The aim of this study was to evaluate the effectiveness of the aid. Baseline charting tests were completed by 58 inexperienced clinical students at the start of a weekly half-day attachment at 3 community dental service (CDS) teaching clinics. These students were randomly assigned, in their tutor groups, to act as either test or control groups. The test group was actively taught charting with the new aid over their first 5-week attachment and control students were taught in the traditional way. Final charting tests were completed at the end of the attachments by all students and their results compared with baseline test results. The test group improved their mean scores from 20 out of a possible 50 marks at baseline to 36 at final test, a mean increase of 15 marks and an improvement of 71%. The control group scored a mean of 18 marks at baseline and improved this to 25, an increase of 7 marks, an improvement of 39%. It is concluded that the new teaching aid is more effective in assisting the students to learn charting than the traditional method.

Evaluation of the Effectiveness of Computer Assisted Learning to Improve the Clinical Examination Skills of First Year Medical Undergraduates

“…The knowledge of learners was significantly increased after the CAL session when compared with traditional teaching session. This is in consistent with earlier studies which have shown that groups of students who studied with CAL had better results than groups using traditional way of learning [12][13][14][15][16].…”

Computer assisted learning. A Review

“…A program was developed in which the student could look at pictures with lesions and then practise putting the results in an electronic record. The evaluation showed that the students who had used the computerised education had 80% better results in pre-and post-tests compared with only 39% in the control group (24).…”

“…Most aim at diagnosis and decision-making. Evaluated packages are available in some of the following subjects: O Anatomy ( (23) O Cariology (9,24) O Taking a biopsy (19) O Pathology (25) Teaching students how to chart teeth offers a simple example of the practical use of CAL. Students have problems with the reversal of right and left sides in the mouth when moving the information into charts.…”

“…Learning Several studies have shown that groups of students who are using CAL have better results than groups using traditional learning (8,9,14,24,31). Some studies even demonstrate that students using CAL needed shorter time to reach the learning objectives, achieving better final results then students who did not have access to CAL (14,32).…”