Early clinical exposure: An adjunct teaching–learning tool in dental discipline

Abstract

Background: Early clinical exposure (ECE) is a teaching–learning methodology which promotes the acquaintance of dental students to patients during their initial 1st year of learning. It comprehends in a socioclinical perspective which supplements learning of correlation of health and disease as well as the role of the clinician. Materials and Methods: Study population includes a Cohort of 96 students of 1st year of Bachelor of Dental Sciences (I BDS). From I BDS, 48 students (Group A = interventional group) were selected as cases and 48 as controls (Group B = control group) by simple random sampling. Group A students were exposed to a module of ECE prepared in a clinical/hospital setting. Group B students were exposed to didactic learning of the selected content of syllabus. After intervention, the students' understanding of the topic for both Group A and B was evaluated by a prepared questionnaire (posttest). The effectiveness of this adjunct learning tool ECE was calculated using the absolute learning gain (ALG), relative learning gain (RLG), and normalized gain. Results: The significantly enhanced posttest score was observed in Group A (7.72 ± 1.42) as compared to Group B (4.08 ± 0.64). The ALG, RLG, and normalized gain were higher with ECE as an adjunct learning tool as compared to didactic learning. On analysis of the perceptions after feedback, it was observed that overall, 92.05% of the students strongly agreed that the ECE was a very appreciable, practically oriented teaching–learning tool and validated the better learning experience. Conclusion: ECE could be a better and effective adjunct teaching–learning tool in the dental discipline.