European journal of dental education : official journal of the Association for Dental Education in Europe
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Comparative Study
Evaluation of student and faculty perceptions of the PBL curriculum at two dental schools from a student perspective: a cross-sectional survey.
Problem-based learning (PBL) research has primarily highlighted issues related to medical education and less evaluation has been reported from the field of dental education. Furthermore, literature reports tend to focus mainly on PBL from a pedagogic and curriculum constructional view and up to this date, studies from a student perspective are lacking. The aim of this study was to approach the evaluation of student and staff perceptions of PBL curricula from a student perspective at two separate schools: the Faculty of Odontology at the University of Malmö, Sweden and the dental school of the University of Southern California, School of Dentistry (USCSD), Los Angeles, CA, USA. ⋯ The results from the survey were intended to provide feedback on student and faculty perceptions regarding the PBL curriculum. The results indicate a general student and faculty satisfaction with the PBL curriculum. Perhaps, surprisingly their perceptions did not differ significantly despite differences in geography, culture and implementation of PBL pedagogy.
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Randomized Controlled Trial
Implementing an Objective Structured Clinical Examination (OSCE) in dental education: effects on students' learning strategies.
To investigate the effect of an Objective Structured Clinical Examination (OSCE) on dental students' learning strategies and competence to manage periodontal diseases in patients. The implemented OSCE was expected to be superior to the existing Written Exam in fostering the acquisition of clinical competencies in terms of study strategies that are more oriented towards clinical practice, longer study time, greater clinical proficiency, and more realistic self-assessment. ⋯ No effects of the implementation of an OSCE in undergraduate periodontal education were observed in study strategies, but the implementation of an OSCE in undergraduate periodontal education appears to stimulate learning, resulting in greater achievement of specific clinical competence and a greater level of realistic self-assessment.
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Comparative Study
Stress, burnout and health in the clinical period of dental education.
The study examined the extent of stress, burnout and health problems experienced by fourth and fifth year dental students from the three universities of Dresden, Freiburg and Bern. The objectives of the study were to: (i) identify frequent sources of stress and to report the prevalence rates of burnout and health problems in dental students, (ii) determine the rate of students suffering from severe burnout symptoms and (iii) identify stress factors related to the burnout symptoms of emotional exhaustion and depersonalization. A total of 161 dental students from Dresden, Freiburg and Bern participated in the study. ⋯ The only predictor of depersonalization was a lack of social integration, accounting for 3% of the variance. A lack of social integration may be an indicator of low social competence which may cause difficulties in dealing with patients adequately and therefore result in depersonalization. The results indicate a need to identify the group of students who may have insufficient social skills for dealing adequately with the patients, and to train them accordingly.
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Randomized Controlled Trial Clinical Trial
Computer-mediated instructional video: a randomised controlled trial comparing a sequential and a segmented instructional video in surgical hand wash.
Video-based instructions for clinical procedures have been used frequently during the preceding decades. ⋯ The students demonstrated positive attitudes and acceptable learning outcome from viewing CAL videos as a part of their pre-clinical training. Videos that are part of computer-based learning settings would ideally be presented to the students both as a segmented and as a whole video to give the students the option to choose the form of video which suits the individual student's learning style.
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The new integrated outcomes-based curriculum for dentistry was introduced at the University of Pretoria in 1997. The first participants graduated at the end of 2001. Educational principles that underpin the new innovative dental curriculum include vertical and horizontal integration, problem-oriented learning, student-centred learning, a holistic attitude to patient care and the promotion of oral health. ⋯ The learning methodology proposed for the specific outcome of the Odontology module, namely the diagnosis of dental caries and the design of a primary preventive programme, included problem-solving as the driving force for the facilitation of vertical and horizontal integration, and an instructional design for the integration of the basic knowledge and clinical skills into a single learning programme. The paper describes the methodology of problem-oriented learning as applied in this study together with the detail of the programme. The consensus of those teachers who represent the basic and clinical sciences and who participate in this learning programme is that this model is practical and can assist vertical as well as horizontal integration of knowledge.