The impact of team teaching on cephalometric tracing education among dental students: A quasi-experimental study

Cephalometric tracing education in orthodontics necessitates a thorough review of human anatomy. Juggling expertise in two fields poses a challenge for professors. A collaborative solution, such as the team teaching model where two professors jointly instruct students, was explored in this study to investigate its impact on teaching cephalometric tracing to dental students in Zanjan during 2021-2022.

This quasi-experimental study involved the participation of all 67 dental students across two semesters in 2021 and 2022. In a shared classroom setting, the orthodontist traced the cephalogram image on the whiteboard, and immediately the radiologist described the related bones using software. This interactive teaching approach persisted throughout the class. At the conclusion of each session, students were given a teaching satisfaction form and a researcher-developed questionnaire containing anatomy questions. Descriptive statistics, including frequency and percentage, were employed, and a Paired T-test was conducted for analytical statistics (p-value = 0.05).

The overall satisfaction percentage of students was 79.75% (563 of 706 response).The highest level of satisfaction was related to the satisfaction with the teaching method. The highest level of dissatisfaction was related to saving time. A comparison of the mean scores of the pretest and posttest showed no significant increase in learning.

Student satisfaction with team teaching is notably high, particularly in relation to the teaching method. However, challenges related to time efficiency were identified as a drawback of this teaching model. Taking into account the study's limitations, it was concluded that team teaching did not significantly impact the learning rate.