Designing and implementation of a mobile application for teaching population oral health needs assessment for dental students; a non-randomized trial

This study investigates the effectiveness of a newly developed smartphone-based application for teaching population oral health needs assessment to undergraduate dental students.

Target population in this study consisted of all students of Shahid Beheshti School of dentistry in the 7^th and 8^th semesters in the year 2023. The intervention group (7^th semester) received teaching about population oral health needs assessment based on the book “Oral health surveys; basic methods”, by means of an application, while the control group (8^th semester) received the same content through self-learning activity. A questionnaire inquiring about the students’ general aspects of smartphone usage, attitude towards learning based on mobile devices (m-learning), and level of knowledge about the content of the book was used for data collection.

Most dental students used smartphones extensively and expressed positive attitudes toward mobile learning with no significant statistical difference between intervention and control groups. However, both groups demonstrated limited knowledge gain from the book content, with the mobile application showing no superiority to self-learning education.

The present study did not demonstrate superior effectiveness of a smartphone app compared to traditional teacher-centered instruction, but the students’ significant mobile usage and positive attitude towards m-learning suggest potential for further investigation in dental education.