Mobile Performance Support System Facilitates Paediatric Dentistry Clinical Practice

The purpose of this study is to evaluate the affordances of the Mobile Performance Support System (MPSS) in paediatric dentistry clinical practice through fourth-year dental students' clinical performance and technology acceptance.

The study involved 95 fourth-year students engaged in paediatric dentistry clinical training. The control group continued with their regular clinical practice training without any changes, whereas the experimental group received performance support through the MPSS. A time-series quasi-experimental design was employed to examine the impact of MPSS on students' clinical performance. The researchers developed authentic analytical rubrics for all applications, which were designed to assess clinical performance. A post-test control group quasi-experimental design was employed to investigate the participants' technology acceptance regarding the MPSS. Upon completion of the clinical training term, the researchers administered the Technology Acceptance Scale to all participants. The MPSS recorded the participants' interaction logs in order to ascertain their use patterns. The collected data were subjected to statistical analysis using SPSS 25.0.

The experimental group demonstrated superior performance to the control group across all performance measures. The interaction logs showed that students used the MPSS not only during clinical hours, but also for clinical preparation. In addition, multi-stage implementations, such as the application of glass ionomer fissure sealant, were observed to receive higher visit rates.

The MPSS significantly improved fourth-year dental students' clinical performance and received high technology acceptance, making it a scalable and effective tool for pediatric dentistry education.