Online Problem-Based Learning in Clinical Dental Education: Students' Self-Perception and Motivation.

Mariana Morgado,José João Mendes,Luís Proença

doi:10.3390/healthcare9040420

Abstract

The physical closure of higher education institutions due to coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) shed a brighter light on the need to analyze, explore, and implement strategies that allow the development of clinical skills in a distance learning situation. This cross-sectional study aims to assess dental students’ self-perception, motivation, organization, acquired clinical skills, and knowledge using the online problem-based learning method, through the application of a 41-item questionnaire to 118 senior students. Answers were subjected to descriptive and inferential statistics analysis. Further, a principal component analysis was performed, in order to examine the factor structure of the questionnaire. Results show that online problem-based learning can be considered a relevant learning tool when utilized within the specific context of clinical dental education, displaying benefits over the traditional learning strategy. Overall, dental students prefer a hybrid system over the conventional one, in a distance learning context, and assume self-responsibility for their own learning, while knowledge thoroughness is perceived as inferior. This online active learning method is successful in improving information and clinical ability (visual/spatial and auditory) advancement in the scope of dental education, with similar results to presential settings. Further studies are required to assess clinical skill development through active learning methods, in a distance learning context.

Highlights

Education is rooted in a social context, in particular its innovation
As to comparing the knowledge thoroughness gained by the Problem-based learning (PBL) method versus the conventional method (Q23), only 36.4% of the present study students agreed, which is inferior to the percentage of 53.3% previously reported [27]
In Q29, while assessing if the PBL method helped identify areas of weakness for further improvement, our results found that 72.0% agreed, while only 50.0% was reported in a previous study [27]

Summary

Introduction

Education is rooted in a social context, in particular its innovation. Problem-based learning (PBL) was part of this context of change [1,2]. Medical education has long been a stronghold of conventional methods. In the aforementioned period, there were many changes in this specific field that led to the inevitable reform and innovation in the teaching of prospective medical practitioners, which included social critique, the rise and fall of clinical medicine, as well as the volume and changeability of medical knowledge [3,4]. Problem-based learning originated in 1966, at McMaster University, Canada [5], and groundbreaking work was later carried out at Newcastle University (Australia), Michigan State University (United States), and Maastricht University (The Netherlands) [6]. The first PBL-based medical curriculum was introduced in 1969 at McMaster University, while only in 1990 did the first PBL-based dental curriculum arise at the Faculty of Odontology in Malmö, Sweden [7]

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Discussion

Conclusion