Abstract
BACKGROUND/PURPOSE: Large language models (LLMs) such as OpenAI's ChatGPT, Google's Bard, and Microsoft's Bing Chat have shown potential as educational tools in the medical and dental fields. This study evaluated their effectiveness using questions from the Japanese national dental hygienist examination, focusing on textual information only. MATERIALS AND METHODS: We analyzed 73 questions from the 32nd Japanese national dental hygienist examination, conducted in March 2023, using LLMs ChatGPT-3.5, GPT-4, Bard, and Bing Chat. Each question was categorized into one of nine domains. Standardized prompts were used for all LLMs, and Fisher's exact test was applied for statistical analysis. RESULTS: GPT-4 achieved the highest accuracy (75.3%), followed by Bing (68.5%), Bard (66.7%), and GPT-3.5 (63.0%). There were no statistically significant differences between the LLMs. The performance varied across different question categories, with all models excelling in the 'Disease mechanism and promotion of recovery process' category (100% accuracy). GPT-4 generally outperformed other models, especially in multi-answer questions. CONCLUSION: GPT-4 demonstrated the highest overall accuracy among the LLMs tested, indicating its superior potential as an educational support tool in dental hygiene studies. The study highlights the varied performance of different LLMs across various question categories. While GPT-4 is currently the most effective, the capabilities of LLMs in educational settings are subject to continual change and improvement.