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ORIGINAL RESEARCH article

Front. Oral Health

Sec. Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery

Volume 6 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/froh.2025.1646299

This article is part of the Research TopicVR-Haptic Technologies and Their Applications in Dental EducationView all 3 articles

A Comparative Analysis of Perceptions and Evaluations of Simodont® Dental Trainer: A Decade of Virtual Simulation

Provisionally accepted
  • 1Griffith Health, Griffith University, Southport, Australia
  • 2Children's Health Queensland Hospital and Health Service, Herston, Australia
  • 3The British University in Egypt, El Shorouk City, Egypt

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

Introduction/Background: Virtual dental simulators with a haptics component have been used with great success in dental education for over a decade and is becoming an integral part of dental curricula. A large number of studies have been published about the users' perception, acceptance and attitude towards virtual dental simulators. However, no longitudinal or long-term studies to our knowledge have been conducted to evaluate the users' acceptance over time.The aim of the present study is to compare the students' and academic staff's perceptions and expectations before using the Simodont® Dental Trainer and their evaluation of the technology after using it now versus ten years ago.The participants were invited for a trial session on the Simodont® Dental Trainer and were asked to evaluate different aspects of this virtual simulator by completing a preexperimental and post-experimental questionnaire. The data collected from the current study was compared against similar data collected and published a decade ago in the same educational institution.In general, participants from the present study rated different aspects of Simodont® dental trainer higher than their counterparts from the previous study a decade ago. Students from the present study were more excited and more likely to accept the technology when compared to the academic staff members as well as their counterparts from the 2014 student cohort. Academic staff and students from both studies were in total agreement that the Simodont® dental trainer should not be replacing traditional teaching. Both cohorts agreed that the feedback provided by the simulator should be supplemented by feedback from human supervisors. The open-ended responses highlighted the cost-effectiveness, student engagement, value of accessibility and flexibility in virtual dental training as well as persistent technical issues within the software as well as the need to develop more didactic content alongside the practical tasks offered by the simulator.Generational differences as well as technology limitations affect the perception to virtual dental simulation. The acceptance of the Simodont® dental trainer is following the cycle of technology adoption models.

Keywords: Simodont ®, virtual simulation, dental education, comparative analysis, questionnaire, Survery, Perception

Received: 13 Jun 2025; Accepted: 04 Aug 2025.

Copyright: © 2025 Bakr, Cameron, Idris, Shamel and Al Ankily. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

* Correspondence: Mahmoud M Bakr, Griffith Health, Griffith University, Southport, Australia

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