USAGE FREQUENCY OF SUPPLEMENTAL MULTIMEDIA RESOURCES TO COMPLEMENT STUDENT LEARNING PREFERENCES

Implementing multimedia learning can be an effective way to teach difficult concepts to a diverse student audience with various learning styles. The objective of this study was to quantify the use of multimedia resources as well as the most common avenues of delivery in dental hygiene (DH) education. In addition, this study evaluated any educational delivery methods that may be required by the responding programs to determine if MMR use is standard practice in DH education. This study followed a descriptive quantitative primary research approach. Invitation to participate in a 42-item electronic survey facilitated through SurveyMonkey was emailed to 316 U.S. DH program directors (PDs) of all degree levels. The questionnaire addressed faculty classroom facilitation including types of digital resources, the frequency of use, and barriers faculty face in creating or directing access to multimedia resources (MMR). To assess faculty use of MMR as a standard practice, the survey evaluated existing requirements regarding digital resources. 78 PDs completed the survey yielding a 25% response rate. A high majority reported using video formats: 59 (76%) reported using YouTube videos and 60% reported using faculty created videos. Fifty-one percent of faculty post lecture podcasts and 44% of programs are using e-textbooks. While 51% indicated there were no barriers experienced using MMR, 43% cited slow internet connections. The results showed a high percentage (79%) of PDs feel the use of MMR will become standard practice for dental hygiene education with confidence interval values of .713 ≤ p ≤ .871 for .90 levels. Conversely, only 23% of PDs stated they do not require faculty members to use MMRs in their respective courses yielding confidence interval values of .697 ≤ p ≤ .858 for a .90 confidence level. These findings deliver insight into the most common media instructional strategies and are significant to DH education due to the increasing faculty awareness of the evolving learning style preferences for current DH students that include multimedia resources, especially video formats, for curricular supplementation.Dental HygieneMastersUniversity of New Mexico. Division of Dental HygieneNathe, ChristineTatlock, CharlesJensen, Paig