Investigating students’ opinions about Oral and Maxillofacial Pathology course in Mashhad School of Dentistry (2009-2010)

Background: oral and maxillofacial pathology is one of the major courses in basic sciences relating dentistry to medicine and is the basis of learning many clinical sciences. Since the periodic evaluation is important in identifying issues and solving them, in this study, students’ opinions were used to gather useful information for better planning in this course. The purpose of this study is to investigate students’ opinions about oral and maxillofacial pathology course in Mashhad School of Dentistry. Methods: This is a cross-sectional study conducted in Mashhad School of Dentistry in 2009-2010 academic year. All students attending their third years of study or more, who had taken oral and maxillofacial pathology course and were willing to answer the questions participated the study. The study was done on 250 students, field method was used for data gathering and the data gathering tool was a researcher made questionnaire, and census was used for sampling. After collecting data, they were coded and analyzed by SPSS 13. Results: According to the results of this study, 63.2% of students had complete to relative satisfaction with the theoretical pathology course, and 81.6% had complete to relative satisfaction with the practical pathology course. Students mentioned the diagnosis of oral diseases as the main application of this course. Conclusion: By using students’ opinions about Oral and Maxillofacial Pathology course in this study, in addition to improving students’ satisfaction by increasing participation and minor modifications in examination methods, we can hope an improvement in teaching quality.