Effects of dental students’ training using immersive virtual reality technology for home dental practice

ABSTRACT

Observation training of home dental practice is easily influenced by the site and time, and differences in learning content are likely to occur among students. The aim of the present study is to prototype virtual reality (VR) teaching material for home dental practice to provide dental students with the chance to observe patients receiving home dental care. The VR teaching material was created before the study, using a patient’s home as the medical treatment scene, and practical training was then conducted using this VR teaching material with dental students. To examine its educational effectiveness, 101 dental students, who attended practical training between June 2018 and January 2019, responded to survey questions before and after watching the VR teaching material. They took a comparative examination, based on the questionnaire results, using text mining and hierarchical cluster analysis. Two variables were tested: changes in self-confidence regarding knowledge of home dental practice (knowledge confidence) and changes in self-confidence regarding treatment assistance (assistance confidence). There was a significant increase in student’s knowledge confidence and assistance confidence scores (p < .001). Moreover, hierarchical cluster analysis indicated a change in the cluster before and after they watched the VR teaching material. Given that VR teaching material makes it possible to conduct home observation training for a variety of reasons, such as lack of available facilities or patient reservation issues, the findings indicate that VR teaching material can supplement dental students’ training in home dental practice.

Acknowledgments

This study was funded by Kanagawa Dental University’s “Instruction Reform in 2017.” It is an on-campus grant for the institution to which the author belongs and not a research grant from a specific company or organization.

Disclosure statement

The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.