J Dent Educ. 69(3): 387-398 2005
© 2005 American Dental Education Association
International Perspectives on Dental Education |
Use of Information and Communication Technology Among Dental Students at the University of Jordan
Lamis D. Rajab, D.D.S., M.Sc., Ph.D.;
Zaid H. Baqain, B.D.S., M.Sc., F.D.S.R.C.S. (Eng)
Dr. Rajab is Professor, Department of Pediatric Dentistry, and Dr. Baqain is Assistant Professor, Department of Oral Surgery—both at the Faculty of Dentistry, University of Jordan. Direct correspondence to Dr. Lamis D. Rajab, P.O. Box 13595, 11942 Amman, Jordan; 962-6-535-5000 (ext. 2863) phone; 962-6-461-7117 fax; lamisr{at}ju.edu.jo.
Key words: computer, Internet, ICT, dental students, Jordan
Submitted for publication 07/19/04;
accepted 12/06/04
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Abstract
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The aim of this study was to investigate the current knowledge, skills, and opinions of undergraduate dental students at the University of Jordan with respect to information communication technology (ICT). Dental students from the second, third, fourth, and fifth years were asked to complete a questionnaire presented in a lecture at the end of the second semester in the 2002–03 academic year. The response rate was 81 percent. Besides free and unlimited access to computers at the school of dentistry, 74 percent of the students had access to computers at home. However, 44 percent did not use a computer regularly. Male students were more regular and longer users of computers than females (p<0.001). A significant number of students (70 percent) judged themselves competent in information technology (IT) skills. More males felt competent in basic IT skills than did females (p<0.05). More than two-thirds acquired their computer skills through sources other than at the university. The main educational use of computers was accessing the Internet, word processing, multimedia, presentations, Medline search, and data management. More clinical students felt competent in word-processing skills (p<0.05) and many more used word processing for their studies (p<0.001) than did preclinical students. More males used word processing for their studies than females (p<0.001). Students used computers for personal activities more frequently than for academic reasons. More males used computers for both academic (p<0.01) and personal activities (p<0.001) than did females. All students had access to the Internet at the university, and 54 percent had access at home. A high percentage of students (94 percent) indicated they were comfortable using the Internet, 75 percent said they were confident in the accuracy, and 80 percent said they were confident in the relevance of information obtained from the Internet. Most students (90 percent) used email. Most students (83 percent) supported the idea of placing lectures on the web, and 61.2 percent indicated that this would not influence lecture attendance. Students used the Internet more for personal reasons than for the study of dentistry. More clinical students used the Internet for dentistry than preclinical students (p<0.001). More males than females used the Internet for dentistry (p<0.01) as well as for pleasure (p<0.01). Time and availability were the main obstacles to Internet use. Dental students at the University of Jordan have access to substantial IT resources and demonstrated attitudes toward the computer and Internet technology and use that were similar to other students in other nations. However, the educational use of ICT among Jordanian students remains low.
The past few years have seen rapid advances in information and communication technology (ICT), and the pervasiveness of the worldwide web in everyday life has important implications for education.
Computer-assisted learning (CAL) in dental education first emerged in 1971 with its introduction at the University of Kentucky.1 CAL use along with advances in information and communication technology is rapidly increasing.2 Nowadays there is general awareness of the potential benefit of CAL all over the world, including the developing countries, and many faculties recognize the need to exploit the capacities of ICT to enhance their educational programs.
The rapid development in computer technology and the wide availability of personal computers together with the Internet, email, and various medical literature retrieval applications have changed both the study and the practice environments in dentistry, as in other disciplines.3–5 Electronic learning allows students to work at their own time and pace.6 ICT in medical and dental teaching is focused on web-based teaching, which comprises communication, interactivity, and displaying clinical images. Other uses of the new technology and media and in dentistry include education for both the patient and the dentist, electronic records and databases, digital imaging, communication between practitioners and colleagues, exposure to new products and developments, marketing dental practices, access to information such as lectures and course material, and "teledentistry," which allows interactive programs and live consultations, thereby enabling people at distant locations to learn without traveling too far.3,6–10
Upon entering dental schools, students have variable levels of competence in the use of computers. In Jordan, all schools provide mandatory courses in basic computer skills (introduction to computers and Internet, Windows, Microsoft office, and the basics of software programming). The University of Jordan is linked to the Internet to help faculty, staff, and students gain access to all sorts of updated information that is relevant to their teaching and research activities at the university. All faculty members and students have easy and free unrestricted access to computers and to the Internet. At this university, there are resource centers located throughout the campus that collectively provide students with access to approximately 1,000 computers linked to the Internet. Recently, the university has established a large Internet resource center with an additional 400 computers.
All students are registered to use the computers at the beginning of their studies and are given email accounts. Two courses in computer and communication skills are mandatory in the dental curriculum as part of the first year. Almost all the teaching staff have personal computers with Internet access in their own offices; they are encouraged to enroll in courses provided by the university to acquire ICT skills. Starting in 2005 all teaching staff will be required to obtain the Jordan University Computer Driving License (similar to the International Computer Driving License) as a requirement for academic promotion. At the school of dentistry, the use of ICT as a tool to support dental teaching and learning was introduced few years ago without a well-defined strategy. One reason may be the great diversity of ICT skills among both teachers and students.
Observations on students’ competence with ICT are few and are carried out mostly in countries where informatics is well developed.11 There have been no studies on ICT in education involving dental schools in the Middle East. The aim of this study was to investigate the ICT knowledge, skills, and opinions of undergraduate dental students at the University of Jordan.
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Materials and Methods
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The sample in this study consisted of students from the second to fifth year enrolled at the school of dentistry at the University of Jordan.
To conduct the study, we used a questionnaire derived from three previous surveys.9,12–13 The questionnaire (questions and results are shown in Tables 1
through 6) consisted of twenty-eight multiple choice questions and four short answer questions. The questionnaire was circulated to the students’ council to obtain comments on its applicability. The items in the questionnaire concerned computer access (questions 1–3), computer skills and training (questions 4–7), computer activities (questions 8–14), Internet access (questions 15–22), and activities involving the Internet and dentistry (questions 23–32).
Data collection took place at the end of the second semester in the 2002–03 academic year. Students from the second, third (preclinical), fourth, and fifth year (clinical) were asked to complete the questionnaire. The first-year students were excluded from the study because they were not yet involved in dental courses and it was difficult to contact them since they take courses taught by the faculty of science. Estimated time to complete the questionnaire was ten minutes. The questionnaires were distributed in appropriate lectures and retrieved immediately after completion.
Participation in this study was voluntary, and all participants remained anonymous. Information on gender, age, and year of study was requested in the questionnaire. The questionnaire and its administration were approved by the dean of the school of dentistry. The second-year class (ninety-five students) consisted of thirty-eight males and fifty-seven females; the third year-class (eighty-six students) consisted of thirty-seven males and forty-nine females; the fourth-year class (eighty-one students) consisted of thirty-three males and forty-eight females; and the fifth-year class (seventy students) consisted of nineteen males and fifty-one females.
The data were processed and analyzed by means of the Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS PC Version 10.0). All of the responses were treated as an equal in weight within questions and among questions. The Chi-square test was used to compare the answers from gender and from the preclinical and clinical year students. The level of statistical significance for all tests was set at p<0.05.
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Results
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An overall response rate of 81 percent (268 out of 332) was obtained. Individual class response rates for the second to the fifth years were 74 percent (n=70), 74 percent (n=64), 91 percent (n=74), and 86 percent (n=60), respectively. Out of 268 respondents, 38.4 percent (103) were males and 61.6 percent (165) females. There was no statistically significant difference in gender distribution among participants from each year (
2=6.38, d.f.=3, p=0.095).
Jordanian dental students are young in comparison to dental students in many other nations because they can enter dental school directly after graduating from high school. At the time of the survey, the respondents’ age ranged from nineteen to twenty-five years, with a median age of twenty-one; 51 percent were aged twenty-one years and under, 46 percent were twenty-two to twenty-three years, and only 3 percent were twenty-four to twenty-five. No significant differences were found in knowledge, skills, and opinions of students with respect to ICT between the different ages.
The following sections summarize the students’ responses to the questionnaire in relation to the following categories: computer access, computer skills and training, use of the computer for academic reasons, Internet access, and use of the Internet for the study of dentistry.
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Computer Access
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Besides having free and unlimited access to computers at the school of dentistry, 73.9 percent of the students had access to computers at home. As shown in Table 1
, the majority of students were satisfied when asked about the access and availability to the computers.
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Computer Skills and Training
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As shown in Table 2, 44 percent of the students reported that they did not currently use a computer regularly; 33 percent had used it regularly for more than three years. Male students were more regular and longer users of the computers. A significant difference was found between males and females in the length of time students said they had been using a computer regularly (p<0.001; Table 3).
When asked about their competence in IT skills, more than two-thirds of the students reported that they were competent in at least some basic IT skills. More males felt competent in computer skills than females (Table 3), and the difference was significant (p<0.01). Sixty-five percent of students who judged themselves as unable/beginners in IT skills were not using a computer regularly, and only 14 percent had used computers for three years or more. Twelve percent of students who judged themselves competent in most basic skills were not currently using a computer regularly, and 70 percent had used computers for three years or more.
More than two-thirds of students (69 percent) gained their IT skills through personal study and experience, and only 21 percent through the university courses. Thirty-eight percent of students who judged themselves as unable/beginners had received their IT training at the university, and 53 percent through personal study and experience. Only 9 percent of students who judged themselves competent in most basic skills had gained their IT training at the university, whereas 86 percent said they had through personal study and experience.
The students were split as to the quality of IT training at the university. More clinical year students found training at the university as poor/very poor than preclinical year students (p<0.001, Table 3).
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Students’ Use of the Computer for Academic Reasons
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As shown in Table 4, students reported that their primary academic (school-related) uses of the computer were access to Internet and word processing. While 81 percent of the students believed themselves competent in at least some basic word-processing skills, more clinical students felt competent in most skills than preclinical students (41 percent versus 28 percent, p<0.05). As shown in Table 3, many more clinical year students used word processing, presentation, and Medline for their studies than did pre-clinical year students. Although equal proportions of both genders believed themselves competent in word processing, more males used word processing as well as multimedia presentations (PowerPoint) and data management for their studies than did females.
The majority of students (91 percent) used computers for academic activities, and almost all (96 percent) used computers for personal activities. Few students (3.7 percent) reported that they used computers every day, and approximately half (48 percent) reported that they used it once a month for academic activities. In contrast, 21.6 percent of the students reported using computers every day and 15.7 percent once a month for personal activities. When the preclinical and clinical year students were compared, no significant differences were found for academic activities or personal activities. However, when comparing gender, more males used computers more frequently for academic (p<0.01; Figure 1A) and for personal activities (p<0.001; Figure 1B) than did females.
As well as having access to printers at the university, about half of the students had access to printers at home. Eighty-three percent of students described their access to printers as being very good or good.
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Internet Access
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As shown in Table 5, 54 percent of the students had access to the Internet at home. Most students were satisfied with their access to the Internet.
When asked about their use of the Internet, 94 percent of the students were comfortable and 89 percent were satisfied with the speed of the Internet. In terms of their level of confidence with regard to the accuracy of information on the Internet and relevance of information on it, 13 percent were very confident, and 75 percent were fairly confident or average in the accuracy. Also, 11 percent were very confident and 80 percent fairly confident or average in the relevance. Almost all the students (90 percent) used email, with 69 percent using it at least once a week.
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Activities Involving the Internet and Dentistry
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The majority of students (83 percent) were in favor of the idea of placing undergraduate lectures on the school website. Around two-thirds of students (61.2 percent) did not expect that this would influence attendance at lectures, while 11.2 percent felt that this would stop them going to lectures.
More students used the Internet more frequently for pleasure than for dentistry. More clinical students used the Internet more frequently for dentistry than preclinical students (p<0.001; Figure 2A). Also, a significant difference was found when comparing gender; more males used Internet for dentistry (p<0.01) as well as for pleasure (p<0.01) than females (Figure 2B).
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Figure 2A. The frequency of use of the Internet for dentistry (left) and for pleasure (right) by year (p<0.001 for dentistry, p>0.05 for pleasure)
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Figure 2B. The frequency of use of the Internet for dentistry (left) and for pleasure (right) by gender (p>0.05 for dentistry, p>0.05 for pleasure) undergraduate dental curriculum to be available on the Internet.
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Perceived barriers to use of the Internet are shown in Table 6. Time and availability of computers were the most important obstacles to using the Internet, while confidence in the ability to use the Internet was the least frequently identified barrier.
Students reported that they often used several nondental websites. As shown in Table 7, Yahoo was the most commonly used search engine (23 percent), and Medline was identified as the most visited dental site (9 percent). The Internet was used by 35 percent of the students for entertainment (music news, fashion, religion, culture, etc.). Almost all students (95 percent) would like materials related directly to
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Discussion
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Several studies have reported on information technology (IT) and the use of the Internet in dental education and their potential use as an educational tool.1–15 This study surveyed the current knowledge, skills, and opinions of dental students at the University of Jordan with respect to information and communications technology.
Analyzing IT skills is especially difficult when comparing results over a span of years: what would be seen as a trivial computer task today may have required advanced knowledge a few years ago. The overall impression of the present study is that dental students at the University of Jordan seem to have comparable computer literacy skills and similar availability of computers and the Internet of that of dental students in other countries.9,12–13 Dental students, as all University of Jordan students, have free and unlimited computer access. More than two-thirds of the students reported that they had access to computers at home. This finding is consistent with data found in an earlier study conducted in a European dental school,12 where 72 percent of the students had access to computers at home.
A high proportion (44 percent) of Jordanian students in the present study did not use a computer regularly. This is higher than the 5 percent for Bristol, 20 percent for Manchester, and 22 percent for Newcastle students cited in a study conducted in the UK.13 One-third (33 percent) of the students in our study said they had been using a computer for more than three years, which compared favorably with 20 percent for Manchester and 14 percent for Bristol students,13 although our percentage is lower than the 57 percent reported in the UK study for Newcastle students.13 Dental schools are managing IT in vastly different ways; the inequality regarding the educational use of computers among the different schools may explain the difference.
This study has also revealed significant gender difference in the length of time that our students said they had been using a computer regularly. For example, 27.2 percent of males versus 54.5 percent of females responded that they were not currently using a computer regularly. Nearly 50 percent of males versus 23 percent of females reported that they had been using a computer for more than three years. This is consistent with the findings of previous studies that showed that male students were more likely to use computers than females.14,15 It appears that male students are much more eager to search for computer courses on their own initiative, favoring the freedom of time and space offered by electronic learning, while females may be more pragmatic and more focused on exams with a tendency to rely on education provided by their instructors.9,16
Jordanian dental students now enter the university with basic computer knowledge since all primary and secondary schools provide teaching in basic computer skills that includes introduction to computers, Windows, Microsoft Office, and the Internet. At the time when the students who participated in the present study were in high school, courses in basic computer skills were not provided in all of these schools. Even though the dental school provides computer education as part of the curriculum, competent students have acquired their IT skills through sources other than the university. More than two-thirds of students gained their IT skills through personal study and experience and one-fifth through the university courses. There were clear differences in students’ perception of the IT training at the university they received, and more clinical year students (66 percent) rated the quality of IT training they received at the university as poor/very poor than pre-clinical students (39 percent). It is possible that courses in computer and communication skills offered by the University of Jordan for dental students as part of their first-year curriculum do not meet the needs to achieve the required work during the clinical years. This finding was confirmed in a previous study 9 in which the authors attributed the difference to the possibility that some of the students were not fully aware of the content of their curriculum or that other students considered that their demands were not being met by the computer courses offered. Therefore, more emphasis could be placed on the management of more advanced operating systems in the dental undergraduate curriculum.17
The findings of our study are consistent with the findings of previous studies where students’ self-assessment of their IT skills tended to be lower than their assessment of word-processing skills.13,18 While 29.5 percent rated themselves as beginners in IT skills and 71.5 percent as competent, there was a drop in the percentage of those who rated themselves as beginners in word processing (19.4 percent) and an increase in the percentage of students who rated themselves as competent (80.6 percent). These levels of confidence in producing a written assignment probably conceal a general improvement in ability since the power of Microsoft Word has increased over the past five years.13 Many more clinical year students used word processing, presentation, and Medline for their studies than preclinical year students; this may reflect the amount of work that requires word processing and literature search for writing reports, clinical seminars, and presentations during the clinical years of study. More males than females used word processing, as well as multimedia, presentation, and data management for their studies. This could be attributed to the likelihood that males are keener on expressing their skills gained through nonacademic activities in their studies than are females.
The school of dentistry at the University of Jordan has not yet implemented ICT within a well-defined educational strategy, and few educational software programs have been developed by the faculty. Therefore, students’ educational use of computers was limited to the Internet, word processing, multimedia, presentations, Medline search, and data management. In an era of self-directed learning, the time may be ripe to start moving toward computer-assisted learning (CAL) in dental education beginning with an assessment of which applications should be taught or made available and how to bring all students up to an acceptable level of competency in their use. Most students will not use ICT without good reason. It is our opinion that multimedia materials and learning software could greatly enhance the learning process, but only if it is integrated into the curriculum. Therefore, the development and sharing of learning material and educational tools for undergraduate dentistry should be a high priority for the dental schools.9
The results of this questionnaire indicated that nearly all students (91 percent) at the University of Jordan were using computers for academic activities. This finding is similar to the outcomes of a survey conducted in sixteen European dental schools.9 All students at the University of Jordan have unlimited access to printers in the university, and almost half the dental students have printers at home. This could explain why only 17.2 percent of them rated access to printers as poor compared with 45 percent for Bristol, 26 percent for Manchester, and 14 percent for Newcastle students quoted in a recent study from the UK.12
Even though dental students have access to the Internet in the university, not everyone has the Internet available to them all the time. This is especially true for students where over half did have Internet access at home. This is consistent with data found in an earlier study,12 in which the authors assumed that a complete move to an Internet-based curriculum will prejudice those individuals without Internet access at home and would be biased towards those students who have it.
There have been substantial changes in dental education area over the past decade. Many dental schools have moved towards problem-based learning.6,10,12–14,19 Implementation of computer-supported collaborative learning20 has driven IT investments and implementation in some schools.6,12–13,21–22 Hence, we believe that the value of available Internet resources and of electronic communication in supporting dental learning can no longer be denied. In the present study, the majority of the students reported that the information on the Internet was "fairly" or "moderately" relevant to dentistry and accurate. This is in agreement with the results found in a recent study.12 This may reflect an ongoing improvement in the quality of websites providing dental informatics. Perhaps, improved Internet availability and connection speed and the mandatory undergraduate teaching of computer facilities and dental informatics will increase the confidence in the relevance and accuracy of information relevant to dentistry on the Internet by students.
Almost all students who responded to this questionnaire used email. At present, the school of dentistry at the University of Jordan does not use email as a mandatory means of communication (versus using paper communication) among dental students or among faculty. Several universities around the world have successfully started using email as a mandatory communication and the Internet as a mandatory information and communication channel.16
One of the great advantages of online teaching is allowing students to focus more on managing their own learning and to work at their own time and pace; it also allows the use of sound, videos, and animation to communicate information.6 The use of online handouts and lecture notes can be used to support lectures and free up time for face-to-face contact with the lecturer such as small group teaching.23 However, the lack of communication with peers and instructors, the absence of evaluation, and the fact that courses appeared to be outdated were the most negative aspects encountered in web-based learning.24,25 One of the first steps that could successfully tackle this problem is to encourage teaching staff to put lectures and teaching material on the web.6,12 The students in this survey and others12 expressed enthusiasm for the idea of putting lectures and teaching material on the web and asserted that this would not stop them from attending lectures.
The vast majority of students in our study enjoyed the experience with the Internet. However, there is no doubt that the Internet can be a distracting medium. This is demonstrated by the responses of students who used the Internet more often for pleasure than for academic reasons; a finding similar to that of a previous study conducted by Walmsley et al.12 The main obstacles identified by students as barriers to using the Internet were time (i.e., delays in getting online for students who access the Internet with a dial-up system) and availability of computers. Confidence in the ability to use the Internet was not perceived to be a barrier by most students; as elsewhere in the world, the Internet is part of the current digital age and is enthusiastically embraced by the younger generation.26
The results of this study indicate that dental students at the University of Jordan had access to substantial IT resources and demonstrated attitudes toward the computer and the Internet and reported levels of use that were similar to other students in other nations. This comes as no surprise in the age of globalization where knowledge knows no boundaries. However, the educational use of ICT among dental students at the University of Jordan remains low. This finding suggests that this dental school is similar to other schools that have not made substantial effort to capitalize on IT resources and capabilities to enrich the curriculum. It is our opinion that dental schools should make greater effort to utilize the advantages of this technology so that the quality of oral health education can be improved. Efforts should be made to invest in problem-solving and evidence-based dentistry and to incorporate methods of information retrieval and management into the curriculum.
As a follow-up to the study reported here, it would be appropriate to evaluate the impact of the university’s new policy on introducing teaching staff to basic computer skills through the Jordan University Computer Driving License. Further work will be needed to test the acceptance of small group online education and the role of faculty in online dental education courses.
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Acknowledgments
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We would like to thank Professor Ghazi Bakaeen, the former dean of the faculty of dentistry, for facilitating the implementation of this study and to thank the students themselves for willingly participating in the study.
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Abstract
Materials and Methods
