European journal of dental education : official journal of the Association for Dental Education in Europe
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Simulations are important educational tools in the development of health care competence. This study describes a virtual learning environment (VLE) for diagnosis and treatment planning in oral health care. The VLE is a web-based, database application where the learner uses free text communication on the screen to interact with patient data. ⋯ The data indicate that students who also undertook history taking with a virtual patient asked more relevant questions, spent more time on patient issues, and performed a more complete history interview compared with students who had only undergone standard teaching. The students who had worked with the virtual patient also seemed to have more empathy for the patients than the students who had not. The practising of history taking with a virtual patient appears to improve the capability of dental students to take a relevant oral health history.
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Changing to a problem-based learning (PBL) curriculum represents a substantial challenge because many faculty members are unfamiliar with the process. Faculty development is a crucial component of successful curriculum change to PBL. ⋯ Future advances in faculty development include harnessing the potential of complex adaptive systems theory in understanding and facilitating the change process, and incorporating the results of research, which illuminates the relationships of the PBL tutorial process to student achievement. There is a continuing need for rigorous outcome-based research and programme evaluation to define the best components and strategies for faculty development.
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Randomized Controlled Trial Clinical Trial
A study comparing the effectiveness of conventional training and virtual reality simulation in the skills acquisition of junior dental students.
The use of virtual reality (VR) in the training of operative dentistry is a recent innovation and little research has been published on its efficacy compared to conventional training methods. Two groups of dental students, with no experience in operative dentistry, were trained solely by either VR or conventional training in the preparation of conventional class 1 cavities. The subjects all used the same operative armamentarium and phantom heads, and were allocated the same duration of practice periods. ⋯ Wilcoxon Tests for the semiquantitative scores indicated significant differences between the VR and conventional training groups for outline form, depth and smoothness but not for retention or cavity margin angulation at P < 0.05 level, with the VR group receiving the higher, i.e. worse, scores. Cavity margin angulation approached significance with a P-value of 0.0536. The results indicated that VR-based skills acquisition is unsuitable for use as the sole method of feedback and evaluation for novice students.
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Comparative Study
An investigation into the use of a structured clinical operative test for the assessment of a clinical skill.
This study was designed to investigate the level of agreement between a group of assessors observing students undertaking a structured clinical operative test. ⋯ The study showed that different assessors were generally able to make agreed judgements on performance criteria in a structured clinical operative test. In setting up performance assessment it is necessary to have close collaboration between assessors to make clearly defined criteria so that judgements are not too subjective. Furthermore, for the assessment of more complex clinical skills, great care is needed in assembling criteria that can be used reproducibly, and sufficient preparation time for the assessors is critical.
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The purpose of this study was to evaluate individual faculty research productivity with respect to gender among clinical faculty in 66 United States and Canadian schools of dentistry. A comprehensive survey instrument was developed to collect information on factors associated with research productivity of individual faculty. The present investigation focused on time spent per week in various work related activities (teaching, administration, research, and private practice), external grant money obtained for research, and responses to 12 variables evaluating the subject's perceptions of their research background, work environment, attitude and outcome effects from publishing, and the use of colleagues in conducting research. ⋯ Respondents reported a mean of 10.3 years (males = 10.8, females = 7.5) in full-time dental education and a mean of 10.1 career publications (males = 11.6, females = 6.5; P < 0.001). Although there was no significant difference in weekly hours devoted to academic responsibilities between males and females, several factors did demonstrate significant gender differences (external grant money obtained for research purposes, P < 0.03; feeling that the departmental chair did not emphasize research, P < 0.05; feeling a lack of autonomy within their institution, P < 0.007; and feeling a lack of available colleagues for research purposes, P < 0.001). The implications of the findings are discussed concerning strategies for improving research productivity for females in academic dentistry.