Comparative Efficacy of Video and Text Instructional Modalities for an Oral Surgery Technique among Dental Students

Purpose: To gauge the efficacy of video media in pre-doctoral oral and maxillofacial surgery education and compare it to traditional text-based learning materials. Methods: Twenty novice dental students were randomly divided into two groups to place an Erich arch bar to the maxillary dentition of a dentoform. Group A was given a 10 minute video instruction while Group B was given 10 minutes to review written text instruction. All participants were given 45 minutes to place the arch bar on a dentoform while being recorded. This session concluded with a survey of student perceptions using the SEEQ. The students then alternated instructional modalities and again evaluated using the SEEQ. Two double-blinded clinical OMS faculty evaluated the recordings in accordance with the standards detailed in the ABPAS. Results: The difference in the post-instructional skill scores of Group A and Group B students was deemed not significant (p = 0.46). Overall, the students expressed significant preference for the video modality compared to the textual modality. The difference of the scores in each preference category between the video and text modalities were all found to be significant with p-values well below 0.05. Conclusion: Educators must remain cognizant towards the benefits of new technology and continue to explore newer, potentially more efficacious modalities such as interactive teaching materials. These benefits may be utilized to help increase student engagement and increase long-term retention of the material. It is imperative to understand the limits of each method and balance them strategically to offer comprehensive healthcare training