Title: Technology based assessment in pre clinical prosthodontics: Technical skills, opportunities and challenges
Abstract:
The acquisition of practical skills is an important component of the dental school curriculum. One of the main objectives of dental simulation courses is to equip students with fundamental technical skills before they see patients. Accurate assessment of student work is therefore essential in preclinical dental training.
In many dental schools, students prepare for these practical exams by practicing on ivory teeth. Instructors provide feedback during the practical sessions, followed by summative assessments. Faced with the diversity of assessments and the inconsistency of the feedback, students lose confidence in it. They feel that this inconsistency negatively impacts the learning process. Technology-based education includes accessible and interactive systems such as computer-assisted learning (CAL), computer-assisted simulation (CAS), and computer-assisted instruction (CAI), which offer students the opportunity to learn and progress at their own pace. Examples from industry include DentSim (DenX Ltd., Jerusalem, Israel), Kavo PrepAssistant (Kavo, Biberach, Germany), E4D Compare (D4D Technologies, Richardson, Texas, USA), and prepCheck (CEREC-Sirona, Bensheim, Germany). The integration of these systems into the dental curriculum is advocated for their ability to facilitate individual learning by providing objective and immediate feedback, as well as for their potential to reduce the workload of instructors and increase efficiency.
The aim of this work is to describe digital assessment systems in fixed prosthodontics and to highlight the challenges involved in implementing these systems in the pre-doctoral curriculum.
Materials and Methods: A literature review was conducted using various search engines: PubMed, Scopus, ScienceDirect, and Google Scholar, examining publications from the last 10 years using the key words: « digital evaluation systems »; « prosthodontics technical skills »; « pre-clinic » and the potential of these technological tools as well as the various challenges of their implementation in undergraduate studies.
Discussion and Conclusion: The systems used in technology-based teaching show potential to complement traditional teaching methods and enrich the learning experience. Their integration has raised challenges, particularly regarding time constraints, human resources, mindset change and financial cost. Furthermore, it
is crucial to conduct more longitudinal studies, case studies on implementation, and comparative studies between institutions to refine best practices and guide future curriculum development.
