Abstract
The Faculty of Dental Sciences, University of Peradeniya has been conducting formal introductory courses in ICT for undergraduates at their entry level. Although senior students do not get an opportunity for ICT education they will be required to perform tasks such as assignments, reports, referencing using ICT tools. Dental undergraduate students’ proficiency in ICT was tested on randomly selected groups from three senior batches. Total performance of all students tested showed that the MCQ score (53.4, SD 8.0) has exceeded the pass mark and practical test (44.0, SD 7.2) has recorded well below. Individual tests on the Practical components also showed that students were extremely weak in Excel (8.1, SD 2.2) and well below passmark in Word (16.9, SD 2.9) and Powerpoint (19.0, SD 5.3) tasks. This indicates that considering the basic nature of the questions in this ICT proficiency test, students have displayed a low level of skill in the practical component. However the total aggregate for the overall student performance (48.8, SD 5.4) has recorded just below the pass mark of 50%. These results reiterate the need for development of a formal supplementary training course in ICT for students in senior batches in the Faculty of Dental Sciences. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.4038/sljbmi.v2i3.3796 Sri Lanka Journal of Bio-Medical Informatics 2011;2(3):107-111
Highlights
Being the only institution in Sri Lanka conducting undergraduate and postgraduate education in dentistry and allied disciplines, from its commissioning of the new building complex in 1998, the Faculty of Dental Sciences, University of Peradeniya achieved University LAN access, an intranet for patient records with computer laboratory and CAL room for student use the number of computer units were far below the requirements
Out of 20 students randomly selected from three batches, for the MCQ component, Final year students have exceeded the pass mark while second (49.58, SD 13.3) and third years (48.04, SD 18.0) have performed just below
Total performance of all students tested showed that the MCQ score (53.41±8) has exceeded the pass mark and practical examination results (44.09±7.2) were well below
Summary
Being the only institution in Sri Lanka conducting undergraduate and postgraduate education in dentistry and allied disciplines, from its commissioning of the new building complex in 1998, the Faculty of Dental Sciences, University of Peradeniya achieved University LAN access, an intranet for patient records with computer laboratory and CAL room for student use the number of computer units were far below the requirements. The Faculty has conducted two studies on ICT awareness by its students. A questionnaire based survey(4) conducted in 2009 among students (new entrants and first through fourth year batches, academic and non-academic staff) has revealed that among students. Majority of participants from all groups studied have expressed that it is possible to carryout e-learning in Dentistry curriculum in the faculty. These results indicate that the present groups of students and staff of the faculty will be ready to accept ICT programmes. Assessment of ICT proficiency could be performed using awareness studies based on questionnaire surveys or actual examinations.
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