ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Vet. Sci.
Sec. Veterinary Humanities and Social Sciences
Volume 12 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fvets.2025.1597710
This article is part of the Research TopicVeterinary teaching in 2025: where we are and where we expect to goView all 23 articles
CRONODENT I, 3D interactive manual for self-learning of the dental chronology of equines
Provisionally accepted- 1University of Cordoba, Córdoba, Spain
- 2Department of Engineering. Synergya Tech., CORDOBA, Spain
Select one of your emails
You have multiple emails registered with Frontiers:
Notify me on publication
Please enter your email address:
If you already have an account, please login
You don't have a Frontiers account ? You can register here
One of a veterinarian’s routine tasks is animal identification, with age being a crucial factor in the identification and evaluation of individuals. Knowledge of the morphological changes in animal dentition used to determine their age is essential in veterinary education. Today’s students increasingly prefer innovative learning tools that incorporate 3D anatomical models over traditional 2D resources. As part of a teaching innovation project at the University of Córdoba, Spain, new educational materials were developed to aid students in identifying the age of animals using 3D images of equine incisor teeth. The main objectives of this initiative were to develop an app, Cronodent I, to support learning of equine dental chronology through 3D-scanned images of horses’ dental arches. A second objective was to evaluate students’ perception and acceptance of these new teaching materials, as well as their impact on academic performance. For this purpose, seventeen equine dental arches were 3D scanned and incorporated into the Cronodent I app. The app’s usefulness was evaluated through a student satisfaction survey (N = 97) and, success rate and performance scores (N = 453). The app was easily accessible and received positive ratings for functionality and usability. The scores improved significatively (p < 0.05) from 4.37 to 4.86, following the success rate a similar trend: it increased more after the Cronodent I app became available to students on the Moodle platform (50.35% vs. 57.51%), but dropped to 48.76% when the app was accessible only on Android mobile devices. Cronodent I proved to be an effective educational tool for developing students’ skills in determining horse age based on dentition type and tooth wear stages. Cronodent I supports self-directed learning and offers mobile access to anatomical materials and resources, with accessibility emerging as a key factor in its overall success. Further research is needed to assess the long-term impact of Cronodent I on the learning outcomes of veterinary students to determine its effectiveness.
Keywords: 3D technology, Equids, Dental age, Mobile app, self-study
Received: 21 Mar 2025; Accepted: 02 Sep 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Rodero, Gonzalez, Rodero and Diz. 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: Evangelina Rodero, University of Cordoba, Córdoba, Spain
Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.