Abstract:

Objective To discusse the application effect of mindmapping on the construction of stomatology students‘ spatial memory on dental anatomy by integrating into a system’s internal knowledge framework based on staged mindmapping. Methods This study was performed among 121 Grade 2016 students majoring in oral medicine in our school. The dental anatomy chapter of the course of oral anatomy and physiology was selected, and Mindjet MindManager 2019 software was used to make a staged mind map of dental anatomy. The mindmapping experimental group (60 students) was divided into three stages during the teaching process: preview before class stage (focus on the summary of key knowledge points), theory teaching stage (focus on the detailing of knowledge points), and review after class stage (focus on the linking of knowledge points).The conventional teaching group (61 students) adopted method conventionally used in lectures. After the lecture, students’ scores in theoretical written and practical training examinations were compared and analyzed between the two groups, and the clinical memory scale was used to test the memory ability of the two groups of students. Results The total scores and subjective question scores of the mindmapping experimental group in the theoretical examination were better than the conventional teaching group (P<0.05); the total scores and tooth recognition scores of the mindmapping experimental group in the practical training examination were also better than the conventional teaching group (P<0.05). However, there were no statistically significant differences between the two groups in theoretical objective question scores and practical tooth carving scores (P>0.05).According to the testing items of the clinical memory scale, after implementing the staged mindmapping teaching method in the two groups, students’ scores in the free memory of images, the recognition of meaningless figures and the portraitfeature associated recall were compared between the two groups. The scores of the mindmapping experimental group were all significantly higher than the conventional teaching group (P<0.05). However, there were no significant differences between the two groups (P>0.05) in directed memory scores and associative learning scores. Conclusion Compared with conventional teaching method , staged mindmapping plays a role in strengthening logical memory in students’ spatial thinking construction, which can help students explore the relevance among knowledge points and construct a relatively complete knowledge system.

Key words: Staged mindmapping, Spatial memory, Dental anatomy, Stomatology student