Development and testing of self-instruction programs in nutrition for dental students.

A study was undertaken to test the hypothesis that self-instructional programs in nutrition and dentistry are as effective a teaching method as traditional lectures. Five programmed self-instructional manuals accompanied by 191 slides were developed and evaluated for effectiveness, as compared to six lectures containing the same information. The study population of 83 freshmen dental students was randomly assigned to a control (lecture) group and an experimental (self-instruction) group. Cognitive tests, performance criteria for diet counseling, and an attitudinal questionnaire were used to compare the two groups. The results of the analysis demonstrated that there was no significant difference in the test scores in the lecture and self-instruction groups.