Interactive H5P content for increased student engagement in a dental hygiene program.

Background: Presently, dental hygiene education is primarily divided into classroom lectures, simulation labs, and clinical experiences. Although the recent surge of curriculum renovation in dental and medical schools centres around enhancing student engagement and active learning, classroom teaching remains teacher-focussed, involving students mainly as passive learners. H5P is an open platform for creating and sharing interactive HTML5 learning content. A large set of H5P content was created and provided to students through the learning management system as supplementary material for an oral biology course in the dental hygiene program at a Canadian university. This study was conducted to evaluate the impact of this interactive H5P content on the students' learning experiences.

Methods: The third-year dental hygiene students enrolled in the oral biology course were invited to participate in the study. Anonymised student performance data from the summative exam were analysed, and a survey regarding the student experience with the supplementary H5P content was administered.

Results: Students performed better on questions for which H5P supplements were provided. The results from the survey showed satisfaction and perceived benefit of using H5P as supplementary content in didactic lectures.

Discussion: The H5P content allowed students to apply knowledge and reproduce understanding, promoting active learning in the didactic oral biology course. Students appreciated the content's interactive nature and expressed willingness to have similar experiences in other courses.

Conclusion: Using H5P, interactive learning content can promote self-directed and personalized learning. This open learning platform has the potential to redefine didactic teaching by fostering an active learning environment.