Trial reportBMC medical education2019
Virtual patients versus small-group teaching in the training of oral and maxillofacial surgery: a randomized controlled trial.
Trial report in BMC medical education, 2019. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 20 papers.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
20 citing papers in PubMed, 33 citations in OpenAlex.
- Use of virtual simulation for regenerative endodontic training: randomized controlled trial.BMC medical education · 2025Trial
- Virtual versus jaw simulation in Oral implant education: a randomized controlled trial.BMC medical education · 2020Trial
- Endodontic diagnostics training in undergraduate dental education: An observational pilot study on AI-driven virtual patient e-learning.International endodontic journal · 2026Observational
- Effect of a virtual reality simulator for preclinical instruction of operative dentistry on level of competence of undergraduate dental students.BMC medical education · 2025Article
- Bridging the gap to clinical practice: a concept for virtual patients in preclinical education in prosthetic dentistry.BMC medical education · 2025Article
- Acceptability of interactive post-endodontic restoration decision making application among undergraduate dental students.Journal of dental sciences · 2024Article
- Efficacy of Virtual Preparation Simulators Compared to Traditional Preparations on Phantom Heads.Dentistry journal · 2024Article
- Article
- The Application of Virtual Simulation Technology in Scaling and Root Planing Teaching.International dental journal · 2024Article
- Education Research: Qualitative Assessment of Virtual Teaching of the Neurological Examination to Students Reveals Importance of Technique, Process, and Documentation.Neurology. Education · 2023Article
- Evaluating the Effectiveness of Interactive Virtual Patients for Medical Education in Zambia: Randomized Controlled Trial.JMIR medical education · 2023Article
- #OMFSurgery: analyzing the use of social media applications in oral and maxillofacial surgery resident training.BMC oral health · 2023Article
- Effect of an endodontic e-learning application on students' performance during their first root canal treatment on real patients: a pilot study.BMC medical education · 2022Article
- Five ways for facilitators to get a grip on small group learning.Canadian medical education journal · 2022Article
- Critical aspects of educating clinical management and clinical reasoning in primary teeth pulpotomy: A qualitative study based on the perspectives of experts and novices.European journal of dental education : official journal of the Association for Dental Education in Europe · 2022Article
- Effectiveness of Virtual Reality and Interactive Simulators on Dental Education Outcomes: Systematic Review.European journal of dentistry · 2022Article
- Implementation and evaluation of a Tele-OSCE in oral and maxillofacial surgery - a pilot report.GMS journal for medical education · 2022Article
- [New approbation regulations-new concepts in urological undergraduate training?]Der Urologe. Ausg. A · 2021Review
- COVID-19 outbreak, disruption of dental education, and the role of teledentistry.Pakistan journal of medical sciencesArticle
- Emerging simulation technologies in global craniofacial surgical training.Journal of oral biology and craniofacial researchArticle
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
5 authors at 1 institution in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
backgroundComputerized virtual patients (VP) have spread into many areas of healthcare delivery and medical education. They provide various advantages like flexibility in pace and space of learning, a high degree of teaching reproducibility and a cost effectiveness. However, the educational benefit of VP as an additive or also as an alternative to traditional teaching formats remains unclear. Moreover, there are no randomized-controlled studies that investigated the use of VP in a dental curriculum. Therefore, this study investigates VP as an alternative to lecturer-led small-group teaching in a curricular, randomized and controlled setting.
methodsRandomized and controlled cohort study. Four VP cases were created according to previously published design principles and compared with lecturer-led small group teaching (SGT) within the Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery clerkship for dental students at the Department for Cranio-, Oral and Maxillofacial Plastic Surgery, Goethe University, Frankfurt, Germany. Clinical competence was measured prior (T0), directly (T1) and 6 weeks (T2) after the intervention using theoretical tests and a self-assessment questionnaire. Furthermore, VP design was evaluated using a validated toolkit.
resultsFifty-seven students (VP = 32; SGT = 25) agreed to participate in the study. No competence differences were found at T0 (p = 0.56). The VP group outperformed (p < .0001) the SGT group at T1. At T2 there was no difference between both groups (p = 0.55). Both interventions led to a significant growth in self-assessed competence. The VP group felt better prepared to diagnose and treat real patients and regarded VP cases as a rewarding learning experience.
conclusionsVP cases are an effective alternative to lecture-led SGT in terms of learning efficacy in the short and long-term as well as self-assessed competence growth and student satisfaction. Furthermore, integrating VP cases within a curricular Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery Clerkship is feasible and leads to substantial growth of clinical competence in undergraduate dental students.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.