EVALUATION OF PRECLINICAL PRACTICE IN PEDIATRIC DENTISTRY: STUDENT'S PERCEPTION

New technologies play an important role in the development of teaching in the European Higher Education Area (EHEA). These have allowed the reorienting teacher's pedagogical practice towards the development of cognitive skills of the student with training more flexible and student-centered. This phenomenon has also influenced in dentistry and dental education specifically supported in instructional videos, which facilitates self-learning of students and their independence from traditional teaching methods. We have developed and implemented a teaching material (instructional videos) to learn techniques for restoring primary teeth in a preclinical teaching context with the institutional support from the University Complutense of Madrid, through 2 Projects for Innovation and Improvement of Teaching Quality (2010 and 2011 PIMCD). We compared the effectiveness of videos with traditional methods of teaching. These are based on the theoretical exposition with the support of images, without the dynamism of the video. We evaluated the final product (cavities made in primary teeth of resin) in preclinical practices of two groups of students, one who has received instructional videos (3 rd Grade of Dentistry) and another one that has not received this support. We use two types of evaluation: teacher's evaluation and self-evaluation, and we compare and compare their level of agreement. All pupils have had since the beginning of the evaluation, the matrix, which are the criteria to take into account. As we know, evaluation represents the key of teaching, allowing a faster and more efficient learning. And we focus on self-evaluation because it is an assessment made by the student which allows checking your own level of learning and, if it necessary, reorient it. We present the results of the teacher's evaluation, self-evaluation and their level of agreement of occlusal cavities (class I) in primary molars performed by 20 students in each group. In such cavities the differences were not significant. Working time was similar in both groups. Students who have received the videos have become more autonomous learners and they appreciated the possibility of consultation throughout the process and, like the most negative aspect, the lack of closer contact with professors of the practice. Students in 4th grade required a longer explanation, and they evaluated positively teacher's mentoring, but they would have preferred a more dynamic way. The level of agreement between assessment by teachers and their self-assessments was low in all of the criteria in both courses. Students were more generous in the ratings. We believe that videos provide great benefits for both, students and teachers, in learning processes, because the dynamism of the moving image reproduces more faithfully the practice. And we consider that the fact that students have had the matrix of evaluation since the beginning gives them a greater capacity to assess and improve their preclinical works.