AN INTERACTIVE MULTIMEDIA CONCEPT FOR TEACHING PRACTICAL SKILLS IN DENTAL EDUCATION – A PILOT PROJECT AND RANDOMISED CONTROLLED TRIAL

Introduction:
Within dental education students are supposed to acquire many clinical and technical skills. One of the main problems students have is that they often not exactly know how to do a procedure although being taught (1). Teaching skills requires different kind of didactical methods compared to impart knowledge only (2). Therefore it was discussed whether a particular eLearning concept was able to increase the efficiency of the teaching and learning effort.

Objectives:
1) To develop an innovative and interactive eLearning module (eModule) for teaching and learning a dental clinical skill (mixing technique for impression material).
2) To implement the new eModule into the curriculum by a blended learning seminar.
3) To verify the benefits of the eModule for teachers and students in comparison to the traditional teaching method (large group seminar).

Methods:
1) The eModule called Alginate Interactive was designed for teaching the material science and mixing technique of alginate. The didactical method of Peyton for teaching procedural skills was taken into consideration for the conceptual design (3,4). The final eModule consists of different innovative and interactive elements (interactive video, game-like gesture-based motion practice, instructional video).
2) The eModul was designed in a way that it can be used as a tool for private study as well as for a blended learning education.
3) In November 2011 a randomised controlled study was conducted within a second year undergraduate dental technical course at the Medical Faculty of Aachen University, Germany. All students (n=56) had to learn and train the mixing technique of alginate. They were randomly split into two groups (control group and intervention group). The students of the intervention group (n=29) participated in a blended learning seminar which was realised in small groups (approx. 8 participants/group). A tutor attended the groups during the training sessions. The students of the control group (n=27) participated in the traditional large group seminar. Afterwards, all students had to demonstrate their learning outcome (skill) in a standardised setting. The quality of the result (mixed alginate) as well as the working process itself was examined. The students evaluated the whole eModule as well as its single elements using a pre and post questionnaire.

Results:
The students of the intervention group were highly motivated using the eModule. Afterwards, they asked for more gesture-based motion practice (100%), interactive videos (96.7%) and instructional videos (96.6%) to learn dental skills. Because of the shortage of time between the conduction of the study and the abstract deadline it was not possible to analyse and present the collected data. The results will be presented definitely at the conference.

Literature:
(1) McCann AL, Schneiderman ED, Hinton RJ. E-teaching and learning preferences of dental and dental hygiene students. J Dent Educ 2010; 74(1):65–78.
(2) Aragon CE, Zibrowski EM. Does exposure to a procedural video enhance preclinical dental student performance in fixed prosthodontics? J Dent Educ 2008; 72(1):67–71.
(3) Lake FR, Hamdorf JM. Teaching on the run tips 5: teaching a skill. Med. J. Aust 2004; 181(6):327–8.
(4) Peyton JWR. Teaching and learning in medical practice. Rickmansworth, UK: Manticore Europe Limited; 1998.