Combined Mode of Courses on Dental Virtual Clerkship During COVID-19 Pandemic for Final-year Undergraduates in Wuhan

BackgroundOnline teaching is being widely adopted to achieve medical teaching objectives during the COVID-19 pandemic. To explore the dental virtual clerkship so as to continue the education of final-year dental undergraduate interns, combined mode of courses including small private online course, problem-based learning, online dental practice broadcasting and dental practice based on relatives’ or friends’ oral health management were applied for clerkship education for final-year interns.MethodsCombined courses of virtual clerkship was conducted from March to May, 2020 for final-year interns, while online preclerkship curriculum teaching was conducted for non-final-year students. Using the online students’ engagement scale (OSE), Biggs’ revised two-factor version of the study process questionnaire (R-SPQ-2F), student engagement and study process were evaluated for both. Teaching efficacy were evaluated via teachers' sense of efficacy scale (TSES) as well. ResultsStudents’ engagement was higher in final-year students, especially the emotion and participation categories (P0.05).ConclusionThis combined mode of courses on dental virtual clerkship could be potentially applied during the pandemic or be supplementary for traditional by-chair clerkship after the pandemic.