Discussion
Although the application of digital tools is widespread in routine dental care, this trend towards digitization has not been extended to dental curricula, making it difficult to prepare future dentists for digital work-life (Previous research has pointed out that didactic teacher-centered approach was more effective than CBL in conveying existing knowledge system (Case analysis was designed to test students’ ability in practical thinking, careful observation, and flexible decision making. Traditional PBL-CBL method was proved to raise scores of case analysis about maxillary sinus lifting when compared with the didactic teacher-centered method (Problems or cases explained with a full digital workflow may provide the students a chance to view clinical cases in a more accurate, measurable and intuitive way. However, there is seldom a purely conventional pathway or a fully digital workflow in routine dental practice (There were several limitations in our study. First, in order to get feedback on the new hybrid approach, Likert scales are more suitable and accurate to measure responses and find differences than Yes/No scales that can only perform rough calculations. Second, we analyzed results from only one clinical department within our institution. These results may have been different beyond our institution. Third, the sample size of students was relatively small, which caused difficulties in statistical analysis, especially for the anonymous questionnaire. Further randomized controlled trial with large sample size was needed to confirm the efficiency of the digital PBL-CBL method.