Evaluation of dental students' awareness and attitudes towards the use of ChatGPT

Introduction: ChatGPT (generative pre-trained transformer),

developed by OpenAI in late 2022, is an advanced artificial intelligence (AI)

technology that has attracted considerable attention. In particular, it can

provide tailored recommendations for educational resources based on individual

learning goals and preferences. In addition, ChatGPT illustrates both potential

opportunities and challenges in education. <o:p></o:p>

Aims and objectives: To determine the frequency of use of

artificial intelligence, which is now quite common, among students in the

Faculty of Dentistry, to evaluate students' positions using a quantitative

approach, to understand if it helps both practically and theoretically in the

process of dental education, to explore benefits and barriers and to include

potential solutions.<o:p></o:p>

Materials and methods: In order to determine how students

feel about using ChatGPT in their learning process, surveys prepared via Google

Forms were filled out by 114 randomly selected students of Atatürk University

Faculty of Dentistry. The collected data were evaluated using the Attitudes

Towards Using ChatGPT (ATUC) scale. Statistical analyses were performed using

the SPSS program.<o:p></o:p>

Results: While 87.70% of the participants stated that

they had information about ChatGPT, 12.30% stated that they had no information

about it. However, when it comes to using ChatGPT, the situation is different:

only 31.60% of the participants stated that they used ChatGPT, while 68.40%

stated that they did not use it. These results showed that although the

participants were generally aware of ChatGPT, the usage rate was low. As the

data was normally distributed, the Pearson correlation coefficient was checked.

According to the correlations between the emotional, cognitive and behavioral

subscales of ATUC, the correlation coefficient of the emotional subscale with

the cognitive subscale is 0.659 and the correlation coefficient with the

behavioral subscale is 0.643. Similarly, the correlation coefficient of the

cognitive subscale with the behavioral subscale is 0.784. All of these

correlations are statistically significant (p < 0.01).<o:p></o:p>

Conclusions: The main purpose of this study is to analyze

the perceptions and attitudes of dental students regarding the use of ChatGPT

in education. The research results revealed that students' perceptions of the

use of ChatGPT were above average. Students were generally positive about using

this artificial intelligence application as a helpful tool in education.<o:p></o:p>