Virtual education: Dental morphologies in a virtual teaching environment

Abstract

Objectives: Digital technology is already playing an increasingly important role in the education of students. The present investigation examined the acceptance of preclinical students for learning dental morphologies in virtual reality (VR). Methods: The creation of the VR dental teaching environment was divided into 3 sections: (a) generation of the digital data; (b) creation of the VR dental learning environment for tooth morphologies; and (c) evaluation by preclinical students through questionnaires combined with visual analogue scale and fixed-answer options. Students of the Department of Prosthetic Dentistry of the University Hospital Munich were able to stay/interact in the VR dental learning environment for 10 minutes with VR headsets and hand controllers. The data were analyzed using the Kolmogorov−Smirnov test and exploratory data analysis using the median value and interquartile range. Results: Of the students, 34.9% stated that they understand dental morphologies much better, 57.1% better, and 7.9% equally well compared to using the traditional textbook. The students would be willing to spend about 500 euros privately for the VR equipment. The haptic and auditive teaching elements were evaluated more positively than the purely visual ones of the integrated information boards. Conclusions: Learning in the VR dental learning environment showed a high level of acceptance among all students and should be integrated as a fixed element in the dental curriculum. A further development for use independent of time and place is desirable.

Effectiveness of Virtual Reality and Interactive Simulators on Dental Education Outcomes: Systematic Review

“…Eight studies applied virtual strategies in teaching miscellaneous dental skills; critical thinking, 82 professionalism, 83 scientific writing, 84 knowledge of home dental practice, 85 head and neck anatomy, 86 dental morphology, 87 dental diagnosis, 88 and social aspects of dental care delivery. 89 Total included participants were n = 543.…”

Pre-clinical undergraduate students’ perspectives on the adoption of virtual and augmented reality to their dental learning experience: A one-group pre- and post-test design protocol

“…Regarding the proposal's limitations, the questionnaires to be used to assess students' perspectives will not be validated. However, there is an important overlap with similar previous studies [2][3][4] .…”

“…However, to date, dental education is primarily aided by 2D image sources. It is believed that a VR teaching environment may deepen the understanding of dental anatomy 2 . In fact, a teaching environment with spatial representations improves the outcomes compared with 2D graphics, by keeping students motivated and providing them with an improved understanding 3,4 .…”

RoboEthics in COVID-19: A Case Study in Dentistry

“…Students reported positive attitudes toward virtual practice systems and VR-assisted dental simulators. Students also observed a significant increase in their practical skills performance (Liebermann and Erdelt, 2020;Liu et al, 2020;Murbay et al, 2020). However, previously developed dental training simulators are not widely adopted by dentistry schools because of the following concerns: affordability and portability.…”