Journal of dental education
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Most often, members of the dental team are educated in separate programs. These professionals then come together in practice to work as a team, often with limited knowledge about each other's roles. The aim of this study was to assess the perspectives of dental and dental hygiene students regarding collaborative learning after taking two courses together. ⋯ In the results, students perceived that learning collaboratively helped them think positively about other dental professionals, benefitted their problem-solving skills, increased their understanding of clinical problems, helped them become better team members, improved trust and respect, and improved their understanding of course content. These results suggest that collaborative learning had a positive impact on both groups. In comments, students suggested they would benefit from more shared learning experiences in the clinic and agreed that collaborative learning would help them create a more cohesive team.
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Multicenter Study Comparative Study
A Survey of Faculty Development in U.S. and Canadian Dental Schools: Types of Activities and Institutional Entity with Responsibility.
The aim of this study was to assess the status of faculty development in North American dental schools in 2016. This research project was designed to update and expand upon a 2001 study that reported the first comprehensive results on similar topics and to compare the 2001 and 2016 results. In this study, survey responses were received from 57 of 75 U. ⋯ Other entities that demonstrated increased participation in dental faculty development were Offices of Academic Affairs, Department Chairs, and Offices of the Dean. Activities with the highest increases in involvement over the past 15 years were faculty development planning, assisting with educational research, assessment of teaching, conflict resolution, team-building, and leadership training. The mean number of full-time equivalents devoted to faculty or professional development in these dental schools was 2.67.
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Multicenter Study
Identifying Needs to Ensure a Humanistic Academic Dental Environment: A Multi-Site Survey of Dental Students' Perspectives.
Dental school academic environments, whether the overall environment or the smaller environments of the classroom, lab, clinic, or community, are critical to student learning and professional development. The aims of this study were to assess dental students' experiences in the overall academic environment related to discrimination, destructive communication, belittlement, and isolation and to explore the relationships between students' emotional health and such experiences. Dental students in all four years at five U. ⋯ To improve overall academic environments, dental educators should create learning environments to foster development of professional relationships, and schools should continue to provide student support services. Identifying and acknowledging shared issues across dental education might stimulate a national discussion that could lead to concerted approaches to address these issues. Identifying the proportions of students with feelings of isolation or loneliness along with experiences of belittlement and destructive communication could provide schools with a useful picture of their academic environment.
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As women enter the dental profession in increasing numbers in North America and around the world, the questions of how they perceive their environment and what kind of barriers they face are important subjects to be addressed. The aim of this study was to assess and compare women dental students' perceptions of bias in their environment and experiences of sexual misconduct at one dental school in each of four countries. In spring 2017, 1,293 female students at four dental schools in the U. ⋯ S. respondents reported being sexually assaulted, compared to 6.2% of Brazilian, 2.5% of Bulgarian, and none of the Indian respondents. Almost half (46.9%) of these students overall perceived their school was not or only somewhat vigilant about issues of sexual misconduct, and only 54% said they would feel comfortable or very comfortable reporting misconduct. These results suggest that academic dental institutions in all four countries need improvements to make their environments more equitable and free of bias and sexual misconduct.
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Comparative Study
Comparison of Dental Students' Self-Evaluation and Faculty Evaluation of Communication Skills During a Standardized Patient Exercise.
The aims of this retrospective study, conducted in 2017, were to explore dental students' perceptions of their first standardized patient encounters and to assess the relationship between students' self-evaluation and faculty members' evaluation of students' communication skills in those encounters. Data from a simulation training laboratory at one U. S. dental school were obtained for all 46 second-year students, who had a standardized patient communication learning session. ⋯ The students rated "making an introduction" most positively. Students had a weighted Kappa agreement of 0.22 (p=0.024) with the faculty evaluations on their post-debriefing evaluation of overall communication skills, which was within the 0.21-0.40 range of fair agreement. This study found that, during their first standardized patient simulation exercise, the second-year students rated their overall communication skills in fair agreement with the faculty member after debriefing.