Presenting the Course of Community Dentistry as Problem Based Learning Workshop and Comparing It to Learning through Lecture

Introduction: Nowadays, the attitudinal aspect of community dentistry course and the way in which this course is taught is critically important. The aim of this study is to compare the presentation of theoretical community dentistry course through workshops using PBL method with that of contemporary method of lecture. Methods: In this quasi experimental study, 64 dental students of Tehran University of Medical Sciences who took the course of community dentistry in second semester of academic year of 2006-2007 were entered into the survey through census. They were randomly allocated into two groups of experiment and control each including thirty two. The course of community dentistry was taught to control group through traditional method in 17 lecturing sessions meanwhile this course was instructed to experiment group through problem based learning method. A questionnaire was used for gathering data. Data was analyzed by SPSS software using descriptive statistics and Chi². Results: The improvement in attitude of PBL group was significant in contrast with that of traditional method group. In post-test, the mean score of knowledge and attitude of the group attending in workshop was higher than that of traditional group but the difference was not statistically significant. The mean score of satisfaction and transferring educational concepts was significantly higher in the group attending in workshop. Eighty one percent of the workshop attendees were satisfied with the method employed in the course. Conclusion: The new method of education has been successful in its achievements as forming a positive atti-tude in students and making them eager for community dentistry issues.