TRANSLATIONAL AND CLINICAL MEDICINE - Georgian Medical Journal

Background: Internet Visual Resources (IVR) — encompassing video tutorials, online demonstrations, and other web-based audiovisual materials — are increasingly used by dental students as a supplement to formal instruction. Despite their growing prevalence, the specific patterns of IVR use in endodontic education, and the factors governing students' selection of such materials, have not yet been systematically characterized. This gap is particularly relevant to endodontics, a specialty in which the operative field is anatomically constrained and procedural visualization is especially challenging.

Aim: The aim of this study was to evaluate fourth-year dental students' attitudes toward IVR in the context of endodontic education and to identify the factors that most significantly influence their choice of such materials.

Methods: Anonymous questionnaires were distributed to 31 fourth-year dental students at the Poznan University of Medical Sciences. The instrument comprised closed-ended Likert-scale items rating the perceived usefulness of IVR for seven specific endodontic procedures, as well as open-ended questions addressing advantages, disadvantages, barriers, and selection criteria. Data were analyzed using the Friedman ANOVA with Dunn's post-hoc test for between-item comparisons.

Results: Twenty-nine students (94%) reported using IVR for endodontic learning. IVR were rated as most beneficial for rotary instrumentation (mean = 4.45 ± 0.77), retreatment (4.29 ± 0.86), and root canal obturation (4.19 ± 0.79), and least beneficial for endodontic anatomy (3.36 ± 1.23). The presence of spoken or written commentary was identified as the most important selection criterion (4.34 ± 0.71), rated significantly higher than material length (3.26 ± 0.93; p = 0.006) and language (3.45 ± 1.03; p = 0.024). Qualitative analysis revealed accessibility and comprehensibility as the principal advantages of IVR, while concerns about content quality, limited procedural coverage at the intermediate level, and access barriers related to language and cost were the most frequently cited disadvantages.

Conclusions: Undergraduate dental students demonstrate a broadly positive attitude toward IVR and integrate them extensively into self-directed endodontic learning, with the greatest perceived benefit attributed to procedural rather than conceptual content. However, the current landscape of available resources does not fully meet students' educational needs. The development of curated, commentary-rich, and freely accessible IVR, integrated within a structured blended learning framework, appears to represent the most effective direction for contemporary undergraduate endodontic education.

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