The Use of Haptics to Predict Preclinic Operative Dentistry Performance and Perceptual Ability

Abstract

The aim of this study was to test whether performance on a range of manual dexterity haptic simulator exercises was associated with preclinical operative dentistry examination and Perceptual Ability Test (PAT) scores. Thirty-nine first-year dental students were tested with three haptic exercises-straight line, circle, and mirror line-each performed twice. Haptic exercise outcomes for accuracy, time, and success rate were measured using commercially available computer software. Spearman correlation coefficients and Student's t-test were used to assess the results. PAT and exam scores were not significantly correlated. Significant correlations were observed between exam scores and both time and accuracy scores for the circle and mirror exams. These results suggest that haptic devices have a potential role in predicting performance in preclinical dental education. Further studies are warranted to develop and validate diagnostic testing strategies for dental students and to evaluate implementation of haptics in the dental teaching environment.

Clinical Skills Acquisition: Rethinking Assessment Using a Virtual Haptic Simulator

“…The results of this study showed a strong association between pre-and post-test scores of GMS and between pre-and post test scores of the BDT spatial reasoning tests. This shows that the use of both hapTEL and Phantom-head simulator systems improved certain psychomotor skills, spatial awareness and 3D/depth perception over a 3-month period which supports the previous findings by Suksudaj (2010) and Urbankova and Engebretson (2011), that the use of virtual reality simulators can provide a better psychomotor learning through the specific dental programme.…”

“…These psychometric tests can be used as a baseline measurement to monitor students' progress during their clinical skills' training programmes. Furthermore, previous studies showed that the use of virtual reality simulators could provide a better psychomotor learning achievement through the specific pre-clinical task-based courses (Grantcharov 2006;Botden et al 2007;Suksudaj 2010;Urbankova and Engebretson 2011;Tregunna et al 2012).…”

“…However, even though there is a growing use of haptic (sense of touch) technologies within many undergraduate healthcare programmes (e.g. see de Boer et al 2015;San Diego et al 2012;Quinn et al 2003), there have been few large scale quantitative studies published to date of the relationship between students' psychomotor skills and haptic learning environments which are becoming widely used in the health sciences in higher education (Bakr et al 2014;Urbankova and Engebretson 2011;Wang et al 2015). Consequently, there has been a need for further investigations into the relationship between students' psychomotor skills and their clinical skills development, which is the focus of the study reported in this paper.…”

A scoping review of the use and application of virtual reality in pre-clinical dental education

“…These works did not draw attention to the fact that the exercise was not on a tooth or that this may even present a problem. One two-part series of studies (46,47) led to the development of a folded torus-shaped manual dexterity test. Performance based on this shape was found to be discriminatory and could identify students who would require additional support with regard to their fine motor control.…”

Early assessment with a virtual reality haptic simulator predicts performance in clinical practice

“…In contrast, measuring the functional, perceptual and sensorimotor capabilities of a student has proven to be much more challenging, and there is no consensus on what types of capabilities need to be measured and how they might relate to dentistry. 12 Measurement of these abilities varies substantially across dental schools.…”