Research

A study on the attitude toward robot utilization in dental hygiene students

Hee-Hong Min   Kwon-Suk Ahn*   

Department of Dental Hygiene, Daejeon Health Institute of Technology
1Department of Dental Hygiene, Chodang University

Abstract

Objectives: The purpose of this study was to investigate the factors affecting robot utilization in the education of pre-dental hygienists. Methods: A self-reported questionnaire was completed by 238 dental hygiene students studying in the Daejeon, Chungcheong, and Jeolla provinces during the period March 1–31, 2017. Results: Future oral health education media had high selection of ‘movies,’ ‘video,’ ‘3D printer,’ ‘robot,’ and ‘drone’ In general education and oral health education, robots were appropriate as educators, assistant teachers, and media. This group had high levels of interest, experience, attitude, and learning scope of robots. Robot utilization education showed a significant positive correlation with the ‘interest,’ ‘experience,’ ‘attitude,’ and ‘learning’ subfactors (p<0.01). Factors influencing robot utilization education were the relationships among actual experience of robot, learning of robot production, social influence of robot, emotional exchange with robot, and the predictive power was 25.5% (p<0.05). Conclusions: Oral health education curricula using robots should be developed considering the emotional exchange and social influence between educator and learner .

Figures & Tables

Table 1. Major characteristics of study subjects