Introduction: Modern dental education programs in Japanese dental colleges require students to gain a vast amount of knowledge as efficiently as possible. With this aim, we devised a low-cost e-learning system, which utilized the students’ mobile devices, a laptop personal computer (PC) as a server, and the dental school’s existing intranet.
The e-learning system employed multiple-choice questions (MCQs), and students were required to answer correctly to move to the next question. Thus, all students were required to correctly answer all questions. The present study aimed to evaluate the usability and effectiveness of the e-learning system based on a questionnaire completed by the students.
Methods: The e-learning system was tested on 151 fourth-year dental students, who were taking a dental radiology class at Nihon University School of Dentistry, Japan. An intranet was constructed using a low-end laptop PC and a wireless router designed for home use. The system was developed in Hypertext Markup Language (HTML), Hypertext Preprocessor (PHP), and My Structured Query Language (MySQL). More than 400 MCQs related to oral radiology were registered in the e-learning system. Students could view and answer the MCQs on their mobile phones and tablets via internet browsers at any time. After completing the e-learning, students evaluated the system by completing a questionnaire set up in Google Forms.
Results: We received 150 responses to the questionnaire (response rate: 99.3%). Fifty-eight percent of the respondents considered that the e-learning system was effective. Opinion was divided about the need to provide a correct answer to move to the next question.
Conclusion: This e-learning system may increase students’ motivation for learning and improve their understanding by enabling them to study during their free time. Improvements will be made to the e-learning system and its application based on the suggestions of the students who completed the questionnaire.
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