Author(s): Tengku Intan Baizura Tengku Jamaluddin, Siti Noorsuriani Maon & Naffisah Mohd Hassan
Globally, local anaesthesia is an essential skill and is formally taught in the dental curriculum. The Inferior Alveolar Nerve Block (IANB) is the most frequent regional anaesthesia techniques used in dental procedures. However, this technique has been reported to have the highest rate of failure among dental undergraduates. Hence, a Local Anaesthetic Simulator Kit (LASK) is developed. The main aim of this study is thus to investigate factors related to the diffusion of innovation attributes on students’ attitudes towards innovative teaching aids using simulator kit. A cross-sectional survey was conducted using questionnaire; and distributed to dental undergraduates. Questionnaire used in this study consisted of items that adapted from previous studies. There were 150 valid data for data analysis. Respondents were undergraduate dental students from Year 1 and Year 3, involving 80% female and 30% male. The study findings reported that all the attributes including relative advantage, complexity, compatibility, observability and trialability significantly influence attitudes of students towards the new teaching aid for local anaesthetics. However, complexity has statistically no significant relationship with the outcome variable. These empirical studies will significantly contribute to formal instructional significance, particularly in the assessment of clinical competence of dental undergraduates at a more microscopic level.