Haptics environments to enhance teaching and learning in surgery and medical education: the interface with drawing research via the hapTEL experience.

Authors

  • Margaret J Cox Dental Institute and Department for Education and Professional Studies. King’s College London
  • Barry Quinn Dental Institute. King’s College London
  • J Wright University of the Arts. London.

Keywords:

Dental Education, Dental Health

Abstract

The hapTEL project, has been developing and evaluating a virtual dental work-station since July 2007, with over 400 dental undergraduate students learning clinical skills. Since July 2011 the work of the project has been augmented to include extending and evaluating the work-station for other health science teaching and studying the relationship between students’ clinical and drawing skills. The hypothesis is that practical drawing activities can improve confidence in specific motor skills in conjunction with virtual learning tools. This paper reports on the first phase of the research to compare the students’ drawing of teeth with the log-files of their performance using the hapTEL systems.

The results of the relationship between drawing and dental skills and performance show how these can inform the development of haptic technologies particularly 3D interface design and a practical example of a pedagogical strategy that could incorporate TEL methods into undergraduate and post-graduate programmes both in dentistry, surgery and other related studies.

Issue

Section

Short Communications