Designing and making educational software on the principles and methods of protection against dental radiographic radiation and its effect on the learning rate of dental students

Abstract: The purpose of this study was to design a software to teach the diagnosis of malignant lesions in maxillofacial radiology and to evaluate its effect on learning in comparison with the classic conventional training method for dental students of Islamic Azad University, Tehran Branch in 1399. This research was performed interventionally. First, the educational software is designed and made using the computer program "multimedia builder", based on the educational protocol of dental diagnostic unit 4 and using the reference book of principles of oral radiology of White and Pharaoh's 2019.After preparing the training software, students were divided into two groups of 25 people, case (Training with software) and Control (Classic Conventional Training), and were trained with similar topics. Due to the Covid-19 pandemic, control group training was done virtually through the Adobe Connect program. At the end of the training, the two groups were assessed using a ten-item test. Both control and case groups answered 10 questions which were based on the White and Pharaoh's Radiology Reference Book 2019 and students were asked to choose the correct answer among 4 options. At the end of the test (10 minutes), the answer sheets were reviewed and the sum of the scores obtained by each person was recorded. The data were evaluated by SPSS-Version 22 software. The mean rank of learning in the control group was 21.46 and in the case group was 29.54. The mean rank in the case group was 8.08 points higher and the difference was significant (P value = 0.04)According to the results of this study, it can be inferred that the use of educational software can be more effective in students' learning to diagnose malignant lesions in maxillofacial radiology than the classical method.