title: Effect of software facilitated teaching on final grades of dental students in a dental morphology course.
abstract: To evaluate differences in students' performance in a dental morphology course after the introduction of a 3D software-teaching program.  Methods: This retrospective study took place at the College of Dentistry, University of Dammam, Dammam, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, from Augst 2013 to January 2016. The study included 3 groups of students taking the course during 3 different academic years: group 1, 2013-14 control; group 2, 2014-2015; and group 3, 2015-2016. The total sample size was 294 (n = 294; group 1 = 94; group 2 = 100; and group 3 = 100). Group 1 =students did not receive teaching facilitated by a software program, but groups 2 and 3 students were provided with the program's CDs. The final examination grades of the students were statistically analyzed, retrospectively  Results: The results demonstrated that the students who received software-facilitated teaching (groups 2 and 3) performed better than the students who did not receive it (group 1). Within the same year for groups 2 and 3, the number of students achieving good grades (greater than 80%) was significantly higher than the students who achieved average grades (less than 79%), with p-values of 0.012 for group 2 and 0.009 for group 3.  Conclusion: There is a positive correlation between the use of a teaching software program for students and their performance in final examinations. The addition of computer-based learning, as one of the teaching methods, could demonstrably boost students' learning.
authors.affiliation: Department of Substitutive Dental Sciences, College of Dentistry, University of Dammam, Dammam, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. E-mail. dr.al-otaibi@hotmail.com.
authors.forename: Ahmad M
authors.initials: AM
authors.lastname: Al-Thobity
authors.forename: Imran
authors.initials: I
authors.lastname: Farooq
authors.forename: Soban Q
authors.initials: SQ
authors.lastname: Khan
mesh_terms: D000715:Anatomy / Q000193:education*; D003194:Computer-Assisted Instruction / Q000379:methods; D004497:Education, Dental / Q000379:methods*; D004522:Educational Status; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D012189:Retrospective Studies; D012984:Software; D013335:Students, Dental; D013663:Teaching