Objective: To study student achievement and satisfaction in orthodontic learning by seminar through applied dialogue technique.

Materials and methods: This study was classroom action research performed with 87 sixth year dental students who enrolled in an orthodontic clinical case seminar at the Faculty of Dentistry, Chiang Mai University. The students were divided into small group of 10-12 students. Each group had 3 meetings. On the first meeting, the pre-test was done at the beginning of this meeting. Then, all students were oriented about the contents of seminar; theoretical and clinical orthodontics and the contents of dialogue. The second meeting was the seminar by one facilitator. Applied dialogue was used through the period of the seminar, providing the student participating; asking, answering and suggestion. The students were assigned to report the learning reflection after this seminar. The last meeting was for the post-test and evaluation of learning satisfaction. Data were conducted with descriptive analysis. Wilcoxon Signed Rank Test was used to analyze pre-test and post-test score. A p-value of less than 0.001 was considered statistically significant.

Results: The students’ knowledge achievement was improved. The mean post-test score was higher than the mean pre-test score significantly at P<0.001. The average dental students’ satisfaction towards the orthodontic learning by seminar through applied dialogue technique was high. Students reflected the benefits of this learning method on their learning ability and self-development, for example; promoting facilitator-learner intercommunication, providing better understanding in orthodontics, enhancing their analytical thinking and encouraging the students to apply theoretical knowledge to clinical practice.

Conclusion: Seminar through applied dialogue technique improved students’ orthodontic learning achievement and contributed to high students’ satisfaction towards this learning method.