Knowledge and satisfaction of dental students with the instruction of oral and maxillofacial medicine: Web-based instruction versus the traditional instruction

Considering the gap of information on the efficacy of Internet-based instruction, this study sought to compare the effect of Internet-based and traditionalinstruction of oral and maxillofacial medicine on the knowledge and satisfaction of dentalstudents.
This experimental study was conducted on 39 fourth-year dentalstudents, who were randomly divided into two groups of A and B. In the first phase, group Astudents received lecture instruction for five lesions including squamous cell carcinoma, acute necrotizing ulcerative gingivitis, lichen planus, leukoplakia and pyogenic granuloma and then received online instruction for herpangina, hand, foot, and mouth disease, acute lymphonodular pharyngitis, aphthous ulcer and erythema multiform. In the second phase, group B students received lecture instruction for herpangina, hand, foot, and mouth disease, acute lymphonodular pharyngitis, aphthous ulcer and erythema multiform and then web-based instruction for squamous cell carcinoma, acute necrotizing ulcerative gingivitis, lichen planus, leukoplakia and pyogenic granuloma. After 21 days, the quality of learning and satisfaction of both groups with the methods of instruction were tested and the data were analyzed using Man U Whitney test and Spss software.
Of 39 students, 26 (66.5%) were females and 13 (33.5%) were males with a mean age of 24.42 years. The knowledge score was 11.97±2.18 and 12.98±3.17 in the traditional and Internet-based instruction, respectively; the difference in this regard between the two groups was not statistically significant (P It appears that conformity of the method of instruction with the topic to be instructed is identical with method of instruction online for the oral and maxillofacial medicine course. But there was no significant different for level of satisfaction for two method.