A comparison of academic and clinical assessments between endodontic residents receiving in-person versus virtual instruction.

Abstract

Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, all modes of instruction were moved to virtual teaching for the matriculating endodontic residents at Boston University (BU) School of Dental Medicine (2020-2021). As dentistry is a very hands-on profession, the switch to virtual teaching comes with its own issues of concept retention, zoom fatigue, and limited interaction/lack of engagement between residents and faculty. There has already been a steady decline in the attendance of live lectures by medical and dental students, with students underscoring the ease of watching online lectures/recorded lectures and learning at their own pace. This study took a mixed method observational research approach, with one group receiving the standard in-person (IP) teaching the previous year, and the other group receiving the new intervention of virtual teaching the subsequent year via the zoom platform. The two groups received the same curriculum in its entirety. End-of-semester written and oral exams were compared between the two cohorts along with their clinical assessment forms. One focus group was conducted individually with each class for the qualitative portion of this study. The class of residents receiving IP instruction scored higher in both written and oral components of the end-of-semester exam. There was no statistically significant difference between the groups in their clinical performance and both groups improved in their exams and clinical performance over time. Focus groups highlighted themes emphasizing the importance of social connectedness and interactions, engagement, individual learning styles and motivating factors, zoom fatigue, and the need for a hybrid model of education. Although there was a difference in an exam performance of residents receiving IP versus virtual instruction, there was no impact on their clinical performance. However, subjectively, the lack of social connectedness impacted the overall learning experience.