Academic performance of dental students: A randomised trial comparing live, audio recorded and video recorded lectures.

Objectives: To compare the academic performance of 4th-year dental students randomly divided into three learning groups: live lecture, video recorded lecture and audio recorded lecture. To assess students' attitudes towards the three learning methods.

Materials And Methods: 4th-year undergraduate students, enrolled in the Orthodontics Theory-1 course, were randomised into three groups receiving different teaching methods; video recorded lecture, audio recorded lecture and live lecture. Subjects were asked to answer two open-ended questions. The first was a simple basic knowledge question in which the answer involved transcribing information from the question, while the second required analytical thinking. Students were also asked to complete a questionnaire assessing their attitudes towards the three learning methods.

Results: 94 students participated in the study and were randomly allocated to each learning method. There were no significant differences in scores between the 3 study groups when answering the basic knowledge question (P > .05). The mean score for the analytic question was significantly higher for the live lecture and video recorded lecture groups compared to the audio recorded lecture group (P < .05). The majority of students agreed that lectures were an essential part of their learning experience and that lectures allowed interaction between students and lecturer. Two-thirds of students reported that watching a video recorded lecture provided a similar learning experience to attending a live lecture.

Conclusion: Video recorded, audio recorded and live lectures were found to be equally effective for providing basic knowledge. Video recorded and live lectures were more effective than audio recorded lecture at assessing higher levels of analytical thinking. Students attending video recorded lecture performed as well as those attending the live lecture.