Flipped clinical training: a structured training method for undergraduates in complete denture prosthesis

PURPOSE: To design and implement flipped clinical training for undergraduate dental students in removable complete denture treatment and predict its effectiveness by comparing the assessment results of students trained by flipped and traditional methods. METHODS: Flipped training was designed by shifting the learning from clinics to learning center (phase I) and by preserving the practice in clinics (phase II). In phase I, student-faculty interactive session was arranged to recap prior knowledge. This is followed by a display of audio synchronized video demonstration of the procedure in a repeatable way and subsequent display of possible errors that may occur in treatment with guidelines to overcome such errors. In phase II, live demonstration of the procedure was given. Students were asked to treat three patients under instructor’s supervision. The summative assessment was conducted by applying the same checklist criterion and rubric scoring used for the traditional method. Assessment results of three batches of students trained by flipped method (study group) and three traditionally trained previous batches (control group) were taken for comparison by chi-square test. RESULTS: The sum of traditionally trained three batch students who prepared acceptable dentures (score: 2 and 3) and unacceptable dentures (score: 1) was compared with the same of flipped trained three batch students revealed that the number of students who demonstrated competency by preparing acceptable dentures was higher for flipped training (χ(2)=30.996 with p<0.001). CONCLUSION: The results reveal the supremacy of flipped training in enhancing students competency and hence recommended for training various clinical procedures.