Developing Educational Research Skills in Senior Dental Institute Students on the Discipline of Endodontics: Dental Crown, Root and Pulp Modeling

Subject. This paper studies students’ educational research skills. Objective. This study aims to analyze development of educational research skills in senior Dental Institute students on the discipline of Endodontics for creating dental crowns, root and pulp models. Methodology. The study was conducted by the Department of Therapeutic Dentistry and Propaedeutics of Dental Diseases at Ural State Medical University. The study included 45 four-year students of the Dental Institute at Ural State Medical University (16 males, 29 females, with the mean age of 21.75 ±1.5 years). Each study participant, a student, made models of three teeth “ransformers” (a “folded tooth” with pulp) of the upper jaw – canine, first premolar and first molar. Statistical analysis of results is performed on a PC using the software package Statistica 6.0, MS Excel and Vortex 5.0. The representative values of data are arithmetic means and the standard error of the mean (M ±m). The statistical significance is assessed using Student’s t-distribution. The results are considered significantly different at p ≤ 0.05 2–5. Conclusions. Defining and mastering optimal methods of learning the morphology of teeth 1.3, 1.4, 1.6 with their morphometric analysis, engagement are the first necessary steps to develop skills in dental crown, root and pulp modeling by senior Dental Institute students. This implies knowledge, skills, practice, and evaluation that must now be assessed for clinical perspectives – variant dental anatomy, morphoarchitectonics of the teeth that are very essential for creation of 3D models with accurate visualization of the internal tooth structure for root and canal studies. These enhance students’ motivation and interest, and boost their engagement in learning. Accordingly, theoretical knowledge of the said manual skills and their practical learning are the important components of training and directly impact mastering these skills.