Comparative effectiveness of instructional methods: oral and pharyngeal cancer examination.

This study compared the effectiveness of different methods of instruction for the oral and pharyngeal cancer examination. A group of thirty sophomore students at the University of Florida College of Dentistry were randomly assigned to three training groups: video instruction, a faculty-led hands-on instruction, or both video and hands-on instruction. The training intervention involved attending two sessions spaced two weeks apart. The first session used a pretest to assess students' baseline didactic knowledge and clinical examination technique. The second session utilized two posttests to assess the comparative effectiveness of the training methods on didactic knowledge and clinical technique. The key findings were that students performed the clinical examination significantly better with the combination of video and faculty-led hands-on instruction (p<0.01). All students improved their clinical exam skills, knowledge, and confidence in performing the oral and pharyngeal cancer examination independent of which training group they were assigned. Utilizing both video and interactive practice promoted greater performance of the clinical technique on the oral and pharyngeal cancer examination.