Evaluation of Dental Students’ Learning Skill Throughout Repeated Practicing in Recording Preliminary Impressions: An Experimental Study

Objective: This study aims to assess whether repeated attempts at taking alginate impressions improve the manual skills of dental students by measuring the error percentage of each preliminary impression and comparing these percentages across multiple trials to evaluate skill progression. Methods: Twenty dental students from the fifth-year stage were selected randomly to participate in the study. Each student took five alginate impressions after receiving a demonstration that included audio and video presentations to reinforce previously acquired knowledge. Error areas were highlighted using a red pen and then identified and quantified using Adobe Photoshop. Error areas have been deliberately identified to calculate the accuracy of each impression. The null hypothesis was that there would be no significant variation in the error percentages of preliminary impressions across the students' trials. Results: The study's results revealed an improvement in the students' manual skills in taking impressions after repeated trials. Even though the fifth trial had the lowest median error percentage, the difference in group means was not statistically significant. Conclusions: Repeated impression-taking improves dental students' manual skills, lowering error percentages in subsequent trials. Furthermore, the use of digital technologies in dental education facilities breaks skill acquisition down into more straightforward steps to detect and correct the errors.