Virtual Reality in U.S. Dental Education: A Cross-Sectional Study of Faculty and Student Perceptions

The aim of this study was to understand perceptions of faculty and student representatives on existing virtual reality (VR) technologies that are being integrated into U.S. dental school curriculum.

Two validated (face and content) instruments were used for this cross-sectional study. National representatives (68 students and 68 Academic Deans) from U.S. dental schools were invited to participate in the Qualtrics surveys. The surveys were segmented into four parts: general information, knowledge about VR, institutional experience with VR, perception of VR's importance.

Faculty and student representatives from 30 dental schools (44%) participated in the study. Students and faculty unanimously agreed that VR technology should be integrated in the dental school curriculum. Some faculty with prior VR exposure perceived the greatest advantage of VR to be standardization and objectivity (55%, n=12). Students agreed with the faculty regarding the advantages of VR, but found the repeatability to be of greater importance (63%, n=5). The greatest limitation mentioned by faculty was cost, while students mentioned other limitations.

The current study highlighted the differences and similarities in the faculty and students' perspective on the current use of VR in dentistry. The findings indicate that VR offers meaningful advantages for curricular integration, particularly by enabling standardized, objective assessment of learner performance and repeatable skill practice under controlled conditions. In the future, a mixed-methods study design is recommended to investigate further and to confirm the current findings.