EFFECTIVENESS OF BLENDED TEACHING METHOD IN TOOTH CARVING APPLIED IN PRECLINICAL COURSE OF DENTAL EDUCATION DURING THE COVID-19 PANDEMIC

Background: The knowledge of dental morphology is essential in every aspects of dental medicine. Tooth carving is useful for development of the manual skills and has positive influence on students performance in clinical practice. In the extraordinary situation caused by the COVID-19 pandemic we needed to use innovative blended models in teaching of dental morphology. Te Aim of the research was to perform comparative analysis of the teeth carved by students in preclinical courses in prosthetic dental medicine, tutored in two methods – conventional and blended, applied in the circumstances of the COVID-19 pandemic. Methodology: Detailed evaluation of 381 carved teeth was done according to strictly defined criteria. Results: The analysis of work of students tutored through blended method demonstrates good level of the skills for reproduction of dental morphology. The approximal and masticatory surfaces of the tooth crown and the teeth roots of premolars and molars were reproduced in better quality by the students in the course with blended tuition. The differences in realization of the criteria are in range of 5%. Statistical significance was established only in re-creation of the masticatory surfaces of molars (p< 0.05). Conclusion:The blended model of tuition can be considered as effective educational model for tooth carving in courses of pre-clinics of prosthetic dental medicine. It would be purposeful for this practice to be combined with traditional educational methods in order to improve the tuition quality.