ArticleBMC medical education2025
From classroom to screen: dental students' perceptions of distance learning during COVID-19 pandemic in India.
Article in BMC medical education, 2025. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Not yet cited in PubMed.
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
0 citing papers in PubMed.
No citing paper in PubMed yet.
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.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
backgroundThe COVID-19 pandemic had severely disrupted the education system in a variety of settings, particularly medical and dental teaching institutes. Restricting the teaching system to virtual mode and the treatment aspect to emergency-only care was of great challenge, in order to prevent the spread of COVID-19. During the pandemic, distance learning had become necessary to ensure that education continues.
objectiveThe present study aimed to analyse dental students' perceptions of the transition of education from traditional to distance learning.
methodsThis was a cross-sectional study consisting of a 25-statement online questionnaire, which was validated (Item- Content Validity Index (I-CVI: 0.87-0.89), reliability confirmed (Cronbach's alpha = 0.82). The questionnaire was anonymously administered to students studying dentistry at the Manipal Academy of Higher Education, Manipal, India. The data collected were analysed statistically.
resultsA total of 713 out of 800 undergraduate dental students participated in the survey, resulting in an 89.12% response rate. Approximately 74% students did not feel that it was easier to concentrate in online classes than in offline lectures, and 60.9% of the students felt that they could not learn the theoretical aspects adequately. Almost three-fourths of the students (73.9%) felt that lockdowns and distance education severely affected the quality of their dental education. Most of the students (86.4%) felt that a lack of patient exposure would affect their future dental practice. With respect to learning preferences, the majority of the students preferred a combination of traditional methods and online learning.
conclusionThe COVID-19 pandemic taught not only the use of technology in education but also future learning strategies. In today's technologically adept world, e-learning is a convenient and effective method for teaching undergraduate dental students. Dental education is evolving consistently to accommodate rapid changes in the education system. However, it should be used as an auxiliary approach in the clinical setting since it cannot replace the conventional face-to-face approach.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
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.