Enhancing Dental Education Through AI: Revolutionizing Exam Creation and Grading

Craig Dunlap, DDS & Gordon Lai, MSD, DDS

Using Artificial Intelligence to Write and Grade Exam Questions for Dental Students

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is transforming education, offering innovative approaches to enhance teaching and assessment. In dentistry—a field with rigorous curricula and high proficiency standards—AI has the potential to streamline processes, improve accuracy, and provide personalized feedback. Leveraging AI to write and grade exam questions specifically tailored for dental students addresses many challenges faced by educators while fostering improved learning outcomes.

AI in Writing Exam Questions
Creating exam questions that accurately assess students’ knowledge and skills is both complex and time intensive. Additionally, academic dishonesty poses a persistent challenge in dental education. Students may collect exam questions into communal test banks, shared among peers, compelling educators to create new questions annually from the same content.

AI programs like ChatGPT and Notebook LM can alleviate this burden by generating high-quality questions efficiently. By uploading lecture slides, reading materials, and notes, these tools produce questions that can be refined to suit specific needs. Furthermore, AI can align question development with Bloom’s Taxonomy, generating items that test cognitive levels ranging from basic memorization to complex reasoning. For example:
– Lower-level question: Define symptomatic irreversible pulpitis.
– Higher-level question: Diagnose pulpal disease in a case study based on symptoms and radiographic findings.

AI tools can also randomize question phrasing and vary distractors, enhancing fairness and reducing bias. Additionally, they can create practice exams tailored to individual students’ weaknesses, helping at-risk learners improve in specific areas.

AI in Grading Exam Questions
Grading in large dental programs is both labor-intensive and susceptible to human error and subjectivity. AI offers a scalable, consistent solution for evaluating student performance objectively.

– For multiple-choice and true/false questions: AI provides instant, accurate grading.
– For short-answer or essay-style questions: Natural Language Processing (NLP) algorithms assess accuracy, relevance, and completeness. For instance, AI could evaluate a student’s explanation of the differences between non-surgical and surgical endodontics based on predefined criteria.

In endodontics, where case-based reasoning is critical, AI can assess students’ problem-solving skills in complex scenarios. For example, AI could evaluate responses to a case study involving a previously treated tooth with an associated sinus tract by analyzing the diagnosis, rationale, and proposed treatment plan.

AI also delivers detailed feedback beyond raw scores. It has the ability to detect areas of strength and recommend resources or strategies for improvement in weaker areas.

Challenges and Ethical Considerations
Despite its advantages, AI in dental education presents challenges. High-quality AI training data is essential for effective functionality, and developing robust datasets that represent the diversity of dental cases is a significant undertaking. Over-reliance on AI risks diminishing the role of human judgment in assessment creation and grading.

Ethical concerns also arise. Transparency in AI algorithms is critical to ensure fair and unbiased grading. Further, data privacy is a potential concern, becsue AI systems are often built from sensitive information including individual student responses and performance. Educators must be familiar with institutional data security measures to protect student privacy and comply with regulations.

Conclusion
Integrating AI into exam creation and grading for dental students has the potential to streamline assessment in dental education. By automating assessment tasks, educators can focus more on delivering high-quality instruction and mentorship. AI enables the creation of diverse, dynamic assessments tailored to individual learning needs, while ensuring consistent and fair grading. With careful navigation of challenges and ethical concerns, AI can enhance the educational experience and better prepare future dentists for success.

Craig A. Dunlap, D.D.S., is an associate professor, vice chair of the endodontic department, and pre doctoral director at the University of the Pacific, Arthur A. Dugoni School of Dentistry in San Francisco.

Gordon Lai, DDS, MSD, is an assistant professor at the University of the Pacific, Arthur A. Dugoni School of Dentistry in San Francisco.