Perceived Credibility and Educational Acceptance of Faculty-Verified Social Media Micro-Learning in the Undergraduate Dental Curriculum: A Cross-Sectional Survey

Background: Short-form social media videos are widely used by dental students as supplementary learning material, but concerns about content credibility and the absence of peer review persist.Objective: The aim of this study is to assess undergraduate dental students' perceived credibility, utility, clinical confidence, perceived cognitive overload, engagement, and acceptance of faculty-verified social media micro-learning, and preferred video length.The study measured students' perceptions; no intervention was implemented, and no learning outcomes were assessed.Methods: A voluntary, anonymous, 13-item online questionnaire (Google Forms) was circulated among undergraduate dental students recruited through institutional portals and student channels accessible to the authors in Maharashtra, India.Favourable meant agree or strongly agree on a 5-point Likert scale.Analyses were n (%) with 95% Wilson confidence intervals, exact binomial tests against 50%, chi-square goodness-of-fit tests, and Holm correction.Results: Among respondents answering each item, favourable responses were given by 104/195 (53.3%) for credibility, 99/195 (50.8%) for trust in endorsed content, 113/195 (57.9%) for concept understanding, 110/198 (55.6%) for procedural retention, 106/196 (54.1%) for clinical confidence, 119/198 (60.1%) for perceived reduction in cognitive overload, 124/195 (63.6%) for curricular integration, 119/194 (61.3%) for engagement, and 120/206 (58.3%) for motivation to revise.After Holm correction, curricular integration (p=0.002),engagement (p=0.016), and perceived cognitive overload (p=0.038)remained significantly above 50%.Conclusions: In this self-selected sample drawn mainly from interns and senior students, using an unvalidated questionnaire, about half to three-fifths of respondents viewed faculty-verified micro-learning favourably, with the clearest support for curricular integration.Findings reflect perceptions only and need confirmation in probability samples with objective outcomes.