Clinical Competence Acquired Through Digital and Face-to-Face Courses During the COVID-19 Pandemic in Dentistry

Substituting face-to-face education with digital platforms is considered one of the main challenges during the COVID-19 pandemic. Specifically in Health Sciences, social distancing measures were implemented at the onset of the pandemic, disrupting traditional teaching with face-to-face patient interactions. A self-perception survey among two groups of students enrolled in the “Propaedeutics of Dentistry” course was applied, using a 3-point Likert scale to assess their clinical competence. Group 1 attended the course face-to-face, while Group 2 participated online. The sample consisted of 54 students, with 31 attending the course in a face-to-face format and 23 participating online. Mann-Whitney U test compared the two groups’ sample means of overall competence. The result yielded a bilateral asymptotic significance coefficient of .015, indicating significant differences between the two studied groups. 48% of face-to-face students and 17% of online students perceived their acquired clinical competence as “high”. 57% of face-to-face students and 29% of online students perceived their acquired clinical competence as “low”. It is urgent to address the academic leveling for the students’ future acquisition of clinical competence. We suggest further research on online learning and teaching to develop a sustainable virtual dental educational model that transforms traditional education.