Virtual patients versus small-group teaching in the training of oral and maxillofacial surgery: a randomized controlled trial.
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ABSTRACT: BACKGROUND:Computerized virtual patients (VP) have spread into many areas of healthcare delivery and medical education. They provide various advantages like flexibility in pace and space of learning, a high degree of teaching reproducibility and a cost effectiveness. However, the educational benefit of VP as an additive or also as an alternative to traditional teaching formats remains unclear. Moreover, there are no randomized-controlled studies that investigated the use of VP in a dental curriculum. Therefore, this study investigates VP as an alternative to lecturer-led small-group teaching in a curricular, randomized and controlled setting. METHODS:Randomized and controlled cohort study. Four VP cases were created according to previously published design principles and compared with lecturer-led small group teaching (SGT) within the Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery clerkship for dental students at the Department for Cranio-, Oral and Maxillofacial Plastic Surgery, Goethe University, Frankfurt, Germany. Clinical competence was measured prior (T0), directly (T1) and 6 weeks (T2) after the intervention using theoretical tests and a self-assessment questionnaire. Furthermore, VP design was evaluated using a validated toolkit. RESULTS:Fifty-seven students (VP?=?32; SGT?=?25) agreed to participate in the study. No competence differences were found at T0 (p?=?0.56). The VP group outperformed (p?
SUBMITTER: Seifert LB
PROVIDER: S-EPMC6894350 | biostudies-literature | 2019 Dec
REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature
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