Optimizing Dental Education: Systematic Interaction Design and Evaluation of a Virtual Patient Simulator
摘要
Virtual Patient Simulators (VPSs) have gained popularity in the field of dental education due to their ability to improve effectiveness by providing a safe and controlled environment where students can practice different clinical skills including diagnosing conditions and treatment planning. However, in most dental education simulators, it is challenging to provide a seamless educational experience while proving variety of dental learning cases without high-end virtual reality equipment. This study presents a web-based VPS system with a mix of 3D and 2D interactions to provide a satisfied seamless learning experience in dental education. We specifically introduced a novel interaction design to the VPS where it enhances skill training in patient assessment via simulated case scenarios. This paper presents the architecture of the VPS along with its user evaluation results for case scenario interfaces conducted by following methods in the field of Human-Computer Interaction (HCI). The evaluation measured system usability, user satisfaction and user interaction in the simulator with a sample of ten dental students. The results indicated that the VPS offers a average higher satisfactory user-friendly interface and higher user-interactive 3D graphics. Moreover, the test statistics also demonstrated that prior experience of IT systems is not needed to learn from our system. Based on the user feedback, we highlight specific issues and areas for further improvement.