Student Perception of Objective Assessment Software for Preclinical Tooth Preparation

Objectives: Faculty assessment of preclinical tooth preparation is fundamentally subjective and faculty calibration is challenging. While clear guidelines for tooth preparation are set, students often have difficulty applying such guidelines during preclinical practice. The purpose of this study is to evaluate CAD learning software for students’ preclinical prosthodontics exercises
Methods: This study was granted Institutional Review Board exemption. All students of the Class 2016 of Harvard School of Dental Medicine (n=36) were individually instructed by a trained faculty member on how to use CAD learning software (prepCheck®, Sirona). Each student completed a preclinical summative examination for a #30 ceramometal crown preparation, and was instructed to evaluate their preparation using prepCheck®. Six selected assessment tools (overview, reduction, margin width, surface finish, taper and undercut) were evaluated for usefulness, user-friendliness, and frequency of use on a scale of 1-5 (1 being the lowest score and 5 the highest). One way ANOVA and Sheffe's test were used for the statistical analysis.
Results: For usefulness, undercut and taper tools indicated the highest average scores, and they were significantly higher than the score of the reduction tool (p<0.05). For user-friendliness, the reduction tool indicated significantly lower score than all other tools (p<0.01). Overview and reduction tools showed less frequency of use than others, and indicated significantly lower scores than others with p<0.05 and p<0.01 respectively. Tools for undercut, taper, and margin width indicated average scores over 4.0 for all 3 categories evaluated.
Conclusions: Results of the survey showed that students recorded the highest value for usefulness, user-friendliness, and frequency of use on the taper and undercut tools of prepCheck® CAD learning software. The reduction tool scored lowest for frequency of use and user-friendliness. The results showed that user-friendliness affected the frequency of use regardless of the recorded usefulness of the tool.