The Comparison of Learning Radiographic Extraoral Anatomic Landmarks through Lecture and blended method(Computer-Assisted teaching and Lecture) : An interventional Study

Introduction: one of the main problems in learning extraoral radiographic anatomicindexes is the long interval between presentation of radiology and human anatomy courses,resulting in forgetting anatomic regions. therefore, radiographic indexes are formed ascomplete abstract and transient images in students’ minds; as a result, their learningand retention decrease. the aim of this study was to compare lecture with combinationof computer-assisted learning and lecture of extra-oral radiographic landmarks amongdental students. methods: this interventional study was carried out in 2009 on 51 dentalstudents of tabriz university of medical sciences. students were randomly allocatedinto two groups. the first group was taught through a teaching method which involvedlectures in the classroom. in the second group, a cd was given to the students. theteaching was accomplished through presentation using skull. six months after finishingthe teaching, both groups took a similar test for evaluation of long term learning. the datawas analyzed by spss 16 using u mann-whitney test. results: there was no significantdifferences in the mean scores between the two groups in the first exam after teaching(p=0.13), yet it was significant in the second exam (regarding retention) (p=0.006), andaverage of non-traditional teaching method group (20.89±10.23) was higher than that oflecture group (13.48±6.39). conclusion: based on the results, non-traditional techniqueof teaching was not more effective than the lecture in short-term learning but in longtermlearning, non-traditional technique was more effective than the lecture.