Perceptions of Dental Teachers about Blended Learning: A Qualitative Analysis

safety of students, patients, and teachers.However, the COVID-19 pandemic seriously impacted dental education at both preclinical and clinical levels.The field of dental education has witnessed many technologyrelated innovations in the past decade, and BL is one such outcome that was widely used during the COVID-19 pandemic. 4lobally, the use of technology in dental education was not new and had been employed to some extent even before the COVID-19 pandemic. 5However, following the COVID-19 pandemic, BL has become the main method of dental education in a few countries worldwide. 6Studies have reported the effective use of BL in the various specialties of dentistry such as endodontics, 7 orthodontics, 8 periodontics, 9 and oral surgery. 10While Information and Communications Technology (ICT)-enabled instruction in dental education was a very rare practice earlier in India, limited IntroductIonBlended learning (BL) or hybrid learning, also known as technologymediated instruction, web-enhanced instruction, or mixed-mode instruction, is an approach to education in which both traditional classroom methods and online digital methods [using Information and Communications Technology (ICT) tools] are integrated.It is an educational approach that combines traditional onsite teaching with the use of technology in order to ameliorate the strengths of both methods while minimizing their respective drawbacks.With the growth of technology-enhanced instruction, BL has gained widespread acceptance across various educational settings. 1BL has been defined by Rowe et al. as the systematic integration of online and face-to-face engagement to support and enhance meaningful interaction between students, teachers, and resources. 2n India, the dental undergraduate program is of 5 years' duration and is conducted in multiple settings, including classrooms, simulation laboratories, and clinical environments.The goal of dental education is to produce clinically competent graduates capable of independent practice.The COVID-19 pandemic brought about drastic changes in many areas of life, affecting society in general and the global health system in particular.Education was one of the most seriously affected components worldwide. 3onsequently, universities and colleges were obligated to promptly adopt various methods and tactics to deal with this extraordinary situation.Dental colleges too had to take various measures to continue imparting education while ensuring the 1,