Dental Students' Perceptions of Social Media for Practical Training: A Single Institution Cross-Sectional Survey

Recent years have seen increased use of social media in practical dental education. Indeed, social media has become a potential learning tool in dental education. This study analyzes dental students' perspectives on using social media in practical training and evaluates the influence of gender and class differences.

A cross-sectional web-based survey was conducted between November and December 2024 in a single institution among dentistry students. A total of 465 students attended from about 860 registered students (response rate = 54.1%). The survey consists of a total of 19 questions, one on gender, one on academic year, and the others being 17 Likert-type questions. These questions aim to evaluate students' general perceptions of social media contribution to education, platform-specific usefulness, ethical acceptability, and reliability. Data were analysed using Mann-Whitney U and Kruskal-Wallis tests and Dunn-Bonferroni corrections.

The majority of participants were female (59.8%). Overall, higher agreement levels were observed for items indicating that social media platforms support learning, with the highest consensus noted in Items 4, 16, and 17 (median = 4.0; IQR = 0). For the YouTube-related item (Item 7), students showed higher agreement that YouTube videos aid comprehension (median = 4.0; IQR = 1.0). Items 3 and 9 received the lowest agreement (median = 2.0; IQR = 1.0), suggesting lower perceived usefulness in these domains. Only one gender-related difference was statistically significant: females reported higher agreement that social media supports three-dimensional learning in preclinical education (Median = 4.0, IQR = 2.0). Regarding comparisons between academic years, results from the Kruskal-Wallis test revealed significant relationships in Item 1 (p = 0.005), Item 3 (p = 0.035), and Item 8 (p = 0.039). However, pairwise comparisons using Dunn's test with Bonferroni-corrected p-values did not indicate statistical significance. Median scores across the 17 items ranged from 2.0 to 4.0 Ratings for platform reliability and ethical compliance were generally neutral, and perceptions varied across years.

Dental students perceive social media-particularly video-based platforms-as useful adjuncts for understanding practical procedures. However, uncertainty about reliability and ethical standards remains common. As this study relies on self-report data from a single institution, potential selection bias should be considered.