Accepted for/Published in: JMIR Medical Education
Date Submitted: May 29, 2025
Date Accepted: Nov 19, 2025
Live Podcasting in undergraduate dental education: controlled cohort study in den-tomaxillofacial radiology
ABSTRACT
Background:
Podcasts are gaining popularity in health professions education due to their accessibility, flexibility, and potential to foster clinical reasoning. However, most formats remain asynchronous and non-interactive, and evidence-based, didactically grounded implementations in dental education are lacking.
Objective:
This study aimed to design, implement, and evaluate a novel teaching format - the Live Podcast (LP) - to enhance interdisciplinary thinking and clinical reasoning in dentomaxillofacial radiology. Both objective learning outcomes and student perceptions were assessed.
Methods:
A total of 41 undergraduate dental students from two cohorts participated. The intervention group (n = 21) engaged in a LP session featuring an interdisciplinary case discussion between a dental radiologist and a clinical specialist. The control group (n = 20) received no podcast intervention. Knowledge acquisition was measured via post-session test. Additionally 21 students completed a structured evaluation questionnaire. Descriptive and inferential statistics (Chi², Fisher’s exact test, Mann–Whitney U test) were used for data analysis.
Results:
Students in the intervention group scored significantly higher in the domain of operative dentistry (mean 4.62 vs. 3.75, p = 0.015), while overall performance across all topics showed a non-significant advantage of the intervention group. The LP format received high ratings (mean value out of 10) across all evaluation domains, including structure (9.76), interactivity (9.62), and interdisciplinary relevance (9.55). Students expressed a strong interest in continued use and recommended the format as a valuable addition to traditional teaching.
Conclusions:
LP offers an engaging and learner-centered approach to dental education. By integrating expert dialogue, real-time interaction, and case-based learning, it fosters clinical reasoning and promotes interdisciplinary awareness. The high level of learner acceptance highlights its potential as an effective and meaningful educational tool. Further research is warranted to assess its scalability, sustainability, and long-term impact across institutions and dental specialties.
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Copyright
© The authors. All rights reserved. This is a privileged document currently under peer-review/community review (or an accepted/rejected manuscript). Authors have provided JMIR Publications with an exclusive license to publish this preprint on it's website for review and ahead-of-print citation purposes only. While the final peer-reviewed paper may be licensed under a cc-by license on publication, at this stage authors and publisher expressively prohibit redistribution of this draft paper other than for review purposes.