Artificial intelligence: ChatGPT as a disruptive didactic strategy in dental education

Purpose: To evaluate the influence of ChatGPT on academic tasks performed by undergraduate dental students. Method: Fifty-five participants completed scientific writing assignments. First, ChatGPT was utilized; subsequently, a conventional method involving the search of scientific articles was employed. Each task was preceded by a 30-min training session. The assignments were reviewed by professors, and an anonymous questionnaire was administered to the students regarding the usefulness of ChatGPT. Data were analyzed by Mann–Whitney U-test. Results: Final scores and scores for the criteria of utilization of evidence, evaluation of arguments, and generation of alternatives achieved higher values through the traditional method than with ChatGPT (p = 0.019, 0.042, 0.017, and <0.001, respectively). No differences were found between the two methods for the remaining criteria (p > 0.05). A total of 64.29% of the students found ChatGPT useful, 33.33% found it very useful, and 3.38% not very useful. Regarding its application in further academic activities, 54.76% considered it useful, 40.48% found it very useful, and 4.76% not very useful. A total of 61.90% of the participants indicated that ChatGPT contributed to over 25% of their productivity, while 11.9% perceived it contributed to less than 15%. Concerning the relevance of having known ChatGPT for academic tasks, 50% found it opportune, 45.24% found it very opportune, 2.38% were unsure, and the same percentage thought it is inopportune. All students provided positive feedback. Conclusion: Dental students highly valued the experience of using ChatGPT for academic tasks. Nonetheless, the traditional method of searching for scientific articles yield higher scores.