The Effectiveness of An Oral Pathology Computer- Assistedlearning Program For Dental Students

Statement of the problem: during the recent years, new methods of teachingand learning have been introduced for medical and dental students in addition tothe traditional teaching techniques. computer assisted learning (cal) program isone of these methods which seem to have promising results.purpose: to compare a computer -assisted learning (cal) program about oralred and white lesions with a print medium of identical content.materials and method: fifty senior dental students were randomly assigned in aprospective study to either use the cal program (n=25) or a pamphlet (n=25).after one week since the educational cds and pamphlets were distributed, bothgroups were asked to complete the post-intervention multiple choice questionnairefollowed by watching 10 clinical slides on oral red and white lesions for 10minutes. chi-square and mann-whitney tests were used for data analysis.results: students in the cal program group scored higher (16.64) than those inthe pamphlet group (13.44) and this difference (3.2 points or 28%) was statisticallysignificant ( p <0.05).conclusion: the difference in test scores was most likely related to the use of thecal program and it seems to be a promising medium as an adjunct to othertraditional tutorial methods.