A complex haptic exercise to predict pre-clinic operative dentistry performance: A prospective study.

Purpose/objectives: The purpose of this study was to determine whether performance on a complex manual dexterity haptic test was associated with preclinical operative dentistry practical examination scores in handpiece naïve students.

Methods: Thirty-nine first-year pre-clinical operative dentistry students completed a 15-min complex manual dexterity exercise "D-circle" repeated eight times in succession before the beginning of the preclinical operative dentistry course. A composite haptic score was compared with students' subsequent preclinical operative examination performance and perceptual ability test scores.

A complex haptic exercise to predict preclinical operative dentistry performance: a retrospective study.

A reliable test of manual dexterity could potentially have utility in dental education. Recently, haptic technologies have emerged that may offer a means of testing manual dexterity in the preclinical setting. The purpose of this study was to determine whether performance on a complex haptic simulator exercise was associated with preclinical operative dentistry practical examination scores or the Perceptual Ability Test (PAT) scores of the Dental Admission Test.

The use of haptics to predict preclinic operative dentistry performance and perceptual ability.

The aim of this study was to test whether performance on a range of manual dexterity haptic simulator exercises was associated with preclinical operative dentistry examination and Perceptual Ability Test (PAT) scores. Thirty-nine first-year dental students were tested with three haptic exercises--straight line, circle, and mirror line--each performed twice. Haptic exercise outcomes for accuracy, time, and success rate were measured using commercially available computer software.

Computer-assisted dental simulation as a predictor of preclinical operative dentistry performance.

We tested whether a computerized dental simulator (CDS) pre-test could predict preclinical operative dentistry examination scores. Thirty-eight first-year students completed cavity preparations during a single four-hour CDS pre-test prior to the operative dentistry course and during subsequent practical examinations. Masked, calibrated faculty members scored the preparations in both settings.

Impact of computerized dental simulation training on preclinical operative dentistry examination scores.

Simulation training may be useful in the preclinical operative dentistry curriculum; however, the optimal timing and duration of training have not been defined. This study compared eight hours of adjunctive computerized dental simulator (CDS) training at two different time points to traditional teaching alone. First-year dental students (n=75) were randomized to CDS training (n=39) or traditional preclinical dental training alone (n=36).

An evaluation of two dental simulation systems: virtual reality versus contemporary non-computer-assisted.

Contemporary dental simulation systems were developed to improve dental students' transition from the preclinical laboratory to the clinic. The purpose of this study was to compare the efficacy of a virtual reality computer-assisted simulation system (VR) with a contemporary non-computer-assisted simulation system (CS). The objectives were to determine whether there were differences between the two systems in the quality of dental students' preparations and the amount of faculty instruction time.

A preliminary study in using virtual reality to train dental students.

This study compared virtual reality simulator-enhanced training with laboratory-only practice on the development of dental technical skills. Sixty-eight students were randomly assigned to practice their skills in either a traditional preclinical dentistry laboratory or in combination with a virtual reality simulator. The results indicate that students who trained with the virtual reality simulator between six and ten hours improved significantly more than did the students in the control group from the first examination of the year to the final examination of the year.