Portable digital video instruction in predoctoral education of child behavior management

The goals of this exploratory study were to determine students' assessment of portable digital video instruction (using the Apple iPod) and to compare examination performance among groups of predoctoral dental students who did and did not utilize portable digital video instruction as a supplement to a conventional pediatric behavior management lecture. Dental students received a one-hour lecture on communication with the parent and child patient as part of their regular sophomore pediatric dentistry curriculum. Digital audio and digital video versions of this lecture were made available to all 113 students in the class. Eleven student volunteers were loaned portable digital video players (the iPod) containing the lecture for a two-week period. Upon completion of the study period, the entire class participated in an anonymous fifteen-minute post-intervention written assessment including a thirteen-item examination covering lecture material. Students who had used the iPod to review the digital video lecture material favored this medium as a pedagogical instrument and as a group performed significantly better on the examination than those who had not reviewed the digital material (p=0.034). In conclusion, portable digital instructional videos may be a useful educational methodology to help predoctoral dental students acquire knowledge in pediatric behavior management.