Department of Orthodontics, Affiliated Nantong Stomatological Hospital of Nantong University, Nantong, 226006, China.
Department of Orthodontics, The Affiliated Stomatological Hospital of Nanjing Medical University, Nanjing, 210029, China.
F1000Res. 2023 Jun 13;11:328. doi: 10.12688/f1000research.109876.2. eCollection 2022.
This study aimed to evaluate the effectiveness of integrating digital technology into cephalometric measurement teaching. In total, 94 undergraduates of stomatology were recruited and randomly allocated to two groups. According to the cross-over design, both groups completed cephalometric measurements by the traditional hand-drawn method and digital technology (the Dolphin software) in different order. In the traditional hand-drawn method, students depicted the outline of the craniofacial anatomical structures on sulfuric transfer paper first, then marked the measurement points and completed the measurement of line spacings and angles; by digital technology, they marked the points in the software and adjust the automatically generated outlines of the structures to obtain the results. Two professional orthodontists were invited as instructors and their measurements were set as standards. An online questionnaire was also used to investigate students' attitudes toward digital technology being used in the cephalometric teaching process. There were significant differences of students' measurements ( <0.01, =0.01 and <0.01; SNA: sella-nasion-subspinale angle, SNB: sella-nasion-supramental angle, L1-NB (mm): the distance from the lower central incisor tip to the nasion-supramental plane) between the traditional method and digital technology. Besides, the results of most items by digital technology were closer to the standards than those by the traditional method, including five items with statistical significance ( <0.05, <0.01, <0.05, <0.05, <0.01), while three items were the opposite ( <0.05, <0.01, <0.01). The questionnaire showed more students preferred digital technology (33%) as a better teaching method than the traditional method (2%) and 72% of participants thought they had mastered 50-80% of cephalometric knowledge after the course. This study demonstrated effectiveness and acceptance of the course applying digital technology during the cephalometric teaching process.
本研究旨在评估将数字技术整合到头影测量教学中的效果。共招募了 94 名口腔医学本科生，并随机分为两组。根据交叉设计，两组学生分别以传统手绘法和数字技术（Dolphin 软件）先后完成头影测量。在传统手绘法中，学生首先在硫酸纸上描绘颅面解剖结构的轮廓，然后标记测量点并完成线距和角度的测量；通过数字技术，他们在软件中标记点并调整结构的自动生成轮廓以获得结果。邀请了两位专业正畸医生作为指导教师，他们的测量结果作为标准。还使用在线问卷调查了学生对数字技术在头影测量教学过程中应用的态度。学生的测量结果（ <0.01， =0.01 和 <0.01；SNA：蝶鞍-鼻根-下顶点角，SNB：蝶鞍-鼻根-上顶点角，L1-NB（mm）：下中切牙切缘至鼻根-上顶点平面的距离）在传统方法和数字技术之间存在显著差异。此外，数字技术的大多数结果都比传统方法更接近标准，包括五个具有统计学意义的项目（ <0.05， <0.01， <0.05， <0.05， <0.01），而三个项目则相反（ <0.05， <0.01， <0.01）。问卷调查显示，更多的学生更喜欢数字技术（33%）作为一种更好的教学方法，而不是传统方法（2%），72%的参与者认为他们在课程结束后掌握了 50-80%的头影测量知识。本研究证明了在头影测量教学过程中应用数字技术的有效性和可接受性。
