Effect of E-learning on Learning Level of Dental Students

Objectives: To evaluate the effectiveness of a web-based blended instructed course on dental student's knowledge of occlusion. This was a quasi-experimental study conducted on 51 interns in Shaheed Beheshti University of Medical Science, Dental School, Iran.

Methods: The students were divided into groups based on nonrandomized allocation according to their educational academic semester. In the two groups pairs were selected based on the student's knowledge of computer sciences and dental occlusion for evaluation of testing bias.

Each of the groups was divided to two subgroups by random allocation by means of coin which half passed a pre educational multi choice test based on educational goals of the web-based content. After participant of the case group in 7 days blended learning dental occlusion course, a post educational multi choice test was performed for determination of their knowledge improvement. The pre and post multi choice tests were paralleled according to the educational goals.

Results: Statistical analysis of the average scores using paired t-test reveled no significant different between the subgroups which indicated that the test had no effect on student's knowledge of occlusion. For the knowledge measure the gains of the case groups were significantly greater than the control group (p<0.001).

Conclusion: We recommended addition of our web-based blended instructed course to dental curriculum for better understanding of students from occlusion.