Blended classroom versus traditional didactic lecture in teaching oral surgery to undergraduate students of dentistry program: A comparative study

Aims and Objectives: The objective of the study is to compare blended classroom methodology with the traditional didactic lecture for teaching dental undergraduate students. Methodology: This cross-sectional comparative study was conducted on 45 year 5 bachelor of dental surgery students at a private university in Malaysia. Students were divided into two groups. One group was assigned for a traditional didactic lecture and the other group for blended classroom methodology using "flipped class." Lecture notes containing a PowerPoint presentation and related videos on the topic "Odontogenic Infections" were uploaded 1 week before in the university intranet, which was made accessible to students of the blended group, followed by an interactive classroom session. For the other group, a traditional didactic lecture was arranged by an oral surgeon using the same PowerPoint and video. An assessment was conducted for students in both groups 1 week later, and scores were compared. Data were analyzed using IBM SPSS 21. Chi-square and Student's t-test were used. P < 0.05 was considered statistically significant. Results: A significant difference was found in posttest knowledge assessment between the two methods. While traditional didactic lecture showed a mean of 5.2 correct answers, the blended method showed a mean of 9.5 correct answers (P < 0.001) out of ten. Furthermore, the percentage of students with correct answers was more in the blended method as compared to the traditional lecture. Conclusion: The present study concluded that the flipped method was better than traditional lecture in teaching dental undergraduates.