Introduction

Current evidence suggests an important knowledge gain of health sciences’ students and professionals with mobile devices (m-learning). This study aimed to verify whether different strategies of teaching (traditional lecture classroom, m-learning, and association of both methods) would present greater efficacy in knowledge improvement regarding dental trauma in primary dentition.

Materials and Methods

an action research study using a participatory approach was conducted with 36 undergraduate Brazilian dental students. A structured questionnaire composed of six clinical cases of traumatic injuries was initially applied to all students (pre-test). Participants were then randomly distributed into three experimental groups: TC – students who had access exclusively to traditional lecture classroom; APP – access exclusively to the mobile application; and TC-APP – access to both approaches. The traditional and technological methods had evidence-based content and visual resources of the subject. After interventions, all students responded to the same previous questionnaire (post-test). Wilcoxon and Kruskal-Wallis tests were performed for statistical analysis.

Results

All tested groups obtained statistically significant improvement between their pre-test and post-test scores, for both diagnosis and treatment of dental trauma (p<0.005). Nonetheless, no intergroup differences were observed among the scores of pre- and post-test for diagnosis (p=0.159) and treatment (p=0.206).

Conclusion

All teaching approaches applied obtained similar knowledge improvement of undergraduate dental students regarding traumatic injuries in primary teeth.