The Rate Of Knowledge Retention In Basic Sciences Courses Among Dentistry Students

Background: Acquiring and recalling knowledge can be considered as the starting point of learning; so increasing  the acquisition  of knowledge and information  recall is one the most important goals of education.Objective: To determine the students'  information recall in the basic courses of histology, immunology, physiology, biochemistry,  head and neck anatomy,  and microbiology  in dentistry  school.Method:  In this descriptive  survey, 60 students who had passed their basis courses were studied. The tests  were  held  five semesters  following  the basic  courses,  and  were  like  those  they  had  passed previously.Results: The results revealed that information recall was the highest for the physiology course (z=0.72), while it was the lowest for anatomy (z=0.07). For the histology course, the lowest mean score was achieved by the students entered in the  year 1997, and the highest  by those  entered  in 1999. The relationship between the entry year  of the  students  and  their  information recall  is  statistically significant  (p<0.05).Discussant: The results showed that the teaching basic science courses such as physiology, anatomy, immunology, microbiology, and biochemistry should  accompany new  strategies in  teaching  and learning. One of these is the inclusion by the teachers of retrieval cues in any course so as to facilitate learning.