The perspective of undergraduate dental students on web-based learning in pediatric dentistry during the COVID-19 pandemic: a Korean multicenter cross-sectional survey

Abstract

Background The COVID-19 pandemic changed the world and created a shift in the dental education program. This sudden change in the dental education program may have affected the academic standards of dental students. This study aimed to evaluate the overall satisfaction and effectiveness of online learning in pediatric dentistry of undergraduate dental students’ during the COVID-19 pandemic in South Korea. Methods An anonymous online survey was sent to three dental schools, and responses were collected from dental school students. Questions included the demographics, perspectives of online classes, comparison of online and offline pediatric dentistry classes and opinions on how dental schools are handling the pandemic. Students’ perspectives on online classes were evaluated based on satisfaction with online education. Data were analyzed using the Kruskal-Wallis test and the Mann-Whitney U test. Results Most students took online classes from home (80.9%) using Zoom (50.4%). The majority reported overall program satisfaction (74.1%) and agreed that universities implemented online classes well (55%). Students who were in favor of online classes responded more positively to questions on the effectiveness and safety of online learning (p < 0.05). Regardless of satisfaction with online education, the students agreed that the online education shift was the right decision in pandemic outbreak. Conclusions Dental students in South Korea preferred and adapted well to the web-based learning program in pediatric dentistry during COVID-19 pandemic.

Perceptions of Clinical Dental Students Toward Online Education During the COVID-19 Crisis: An Egyptian Multicenter Cross-Sectional Survey

“…Unlike recently published studies, the most used online platform among the participants in our survey was Google Classroom, followed by Microsoft Teams. This finding contrasts with previous work where ZOOM was reported to be the most commonly used online platform (Al-Balas et al, 2020;Ahmed et al, 2021;Brar et al, 2021;Herr et al, 2021;Temash et al, 2021). Herr et al (2021) found that ZOOM was the most used platform among South Korean dental students (Herr et al, 2021).…”

“…This finding contrasts with previous work where ZOOM was reported to be the most commonly used online platform (Al-Balas et al, 2020;Ahmed et al, 2021;Brar et al, 2021;Herr et al, 2021;Temash et al, 2021). Herr et al (2021) found that ZOOM was the most used platform among South Korean dental students (Herr et al, 2021). We hypothesize two reasons for the differences.…”

“…It is worth mentioning that most of the students (91.5%) owned an electronic device to access the online content. These results are in agreement with the results from different surveys among German, South Korean, and Brazilian dental students (Schlenz et al, 2020;Herr et al, 2021;Silva et al, 2021). However, when the students were given the opportunity to elaborate their views of the common problems associated with online education, the speed and cost of the Internet in Egypt were one of the main reasons that prevented the proper delivery of study materials to students (Online Education, 2021).…”

“…With the escalation of the COVID-19 pandemic, it is foreseeable that many dental academic institutions have shifted to online education platforms instead of in-person education (Hassan and Amer, 2021;Herr et al, 2021). In this survey, we explored the major challenges during the transition into distance learning, overall satisfaction as well as a future vision toward online education in dental education among clinical dental students in public and private Egyptian dental schools.…”

“…The media and the UNESCO have raised concerns regarding the impact of these changes to university teaching on student education in the COVID-19 and post-COVID-19 world (Lewin, 2020). During the year 2020, mounting research has examined the application of e-learning styles in medical and dental academic institutions in response to the COVID-19 crisis (Al-Balas et al, 2020;Bennardo et al, 2020;Brar et al, 2021;Herr et al, 2021). In Italy, dental schools moved classes and examinations into virtual platforms (Bennardo et al, 2020).…”