Student learning and the teaching-research nexus in oral biology

Although frequently coexistent, we know little about the interactions among research, teaching and learning in higher education. This study examines the preferences of second and third year dental students for questions that require a research-based deep approach or questions that require a straightforward didactic approach. A questionnaire was designed to evaluate the opinion of 114 students who took part in the Oral Biology course. 56 second year students (75%) responded while 58 (84%) of third year students responded. Questions that required an interpretive approach were found to be most appealing by 70.2% of all students. Questions which required a regurgitative approach were favoured by 11.6% of students. No significant differences were found when the sample was broken down by country of origin, year of study or gender, suggesting that dental students preferred research-based learning rather than superficial didactic learning.