Abstract
Objectives: New teaching methods that can contribute to quality of education in dental hygiene and help students to have enhanced ability to deal with dental care and participate actively in their education should be developed. Therefore, this study analyzed educational examples where TBL was applied in medical field to identify the effect of teaching and learning program designed to nurture self-directed learning ability, aiming to use the results for future dental hygiene education. Material and method: For this study, we sampled a test group consisting of 32 students and a control group consisting of 28 students in the first year, Dept of Dental Hygiene, C University. The period of this study was from August 30 to December, 2007. To identify the effect of TBL on learning attitudes, academic achievements of the subjects, we used a t-test and compared pre & post effects of TBL using a paired t-test. And to analyze the effect of TBL on learning attitudes and learning motivation of each group, we used General Linear Model, Univariate(GLM). Results: The findings of the study were as follows: 1. The experimental group that was engaged in TBL excelled the control group that wasn't in learning attitude(p<0.05). 2. The experimental group that was engaged in TBL made a better academic achievement than the control group(p<0.05). 4. The experimental group that was engaged in TBL expressed more satisfaction with the instruction than the control group(p<0.05). In conclusion: The findings of the study illustrated that TBL brought more positive changes than the typical expository teaching method to the academic achievement, learning attitude of the learners. Therefore imperative to develop teaching-learning programs to improve teaching methods.