Educational effectiveness of remote training with smart glasses for impression-taking

Area of Science:

• Dental Education
• Medical Simulation
• Remote Learning Technologies

Background:

• Traditional dental education relies heavily on in-person training for clinical skills like impression-taking.
• Developing effective remote clinical training strategies is crucial for modern medical education.

Purpose of the Study:

• To compare the educational outcomes of remote instruction (RI) using smart glasses versus face-to-face instruction (FI) and paper-based self-learning (SL) for dental impression-taking.
• To analyze the educational effects to inform the development of remote clinical training strategies.

Main Methods:

• Dental residents were divided into three groups: RI (smart glasses), FI, and SL (paper-based).
• Participants practiced taking dental impressions on jaw models before and after instruction.
• Pre- and post-instruction impression scores were evaluated and statistically analyzed.

Main Results:

• Both RI and FI groups showed significant improvement in impression scores (p < 0.05).
• The SL group showed no significant score changes.
• RI and FI groups demonstrated significantly greater score improvements than the SL group, with no significant difference between RI and FI.

Conclusions:

• Remote instruction using smart glasses is more effective than paper-based self-learning for dental impression-taking.
• Remote instruction using smart glasses shows comparable educational efficacy to face-to-face instruction.