Comparison of learning effectiveness between physical classroom and online learning for dental education during the COVID-19 pandemic

Online learning has been used to continue dental education activities during the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). This study aimed to compare the learning effectiveness between physical classroom and online class learning for dental education during the COVID-19 pandemic by the questionnaire survey. A questionnaire-based online survey was used to evaluate the learning effectiveness on the dental students who took the compulsory course entitled “oral pathology and diagnosis” in School of Dentistry, National Taiwan University in 2021. Student's t-test and Mann–Whitney U test were used to analyze the difference in learning effectiveness between physical classroom and online class learning for dental education during the COVID-19 pandemic. In this study, dental students tended to have a viewpoint that the learning effectiveness of online class learning was better than that of physical classroom learning. On the contrary, they tended to have a viewpoint that the convenience and fairness of physical classroom examination was better than that of online examination (all P-values