Evaluation of a teaching aid for dental students

A new teaching aid to assist undergraduate dental students to learn charting methods was developed. The aim of this study was to evaluate the effectiveness of the aid. Baseline charting tests were completed by 58 inexperienced clinical students at the start of a weekly half-day attachment at 3 community dental service (CDS) teaching clinics. These students were randomly assigned, in their tutor groups, to act as either test or control groups. The test group was actively taught charting with the new aid over their first 5-week attachment and control students were taught in the traditional way. Final charting tests were completed at the end of the attachments by all students and their results compared with baseline test results. The test group improved their mean scores from 20 out of a possible 50 marks at baseline to 36 at final test, a mean increase of 15 marks and an improvement of 71%. The control group scored a mean of 18 marks at baseline and improved this to 25, an increase of 7 marks, an improvement of 39%. It is concluded that the new teaching aid is more effective in assisting the students to learn charting than the traditional method.