Relationship between students’ performance on weekly task assessments and final practical exam at the preclinical restorative dentistry course

Abstract

Objectives: The purpose of this study was to examine the relationships between dental students’ performance on weekly practical task assessments, midterm practical exam and final practical exam in the preclinical restorative dentistry course.

Methods: Scores of final practical exam, midterm practical exam and weekly practical task assessments in the restorative dentistry preclinical course in the half year of the third year of the curriculum at Biruni University Faculty of Dentistry were compared. It was hypothesized that students that performed highly on weekly task assessments would perform highly on the midterm and final practical exams.

Results: The results showed that the weekly practical task assessment scores were correlated with the midterm practical exam and final practical exam scores and were a positive predictor. However, final practical exam scores were significantly lower than midterm practical exam and weekly practical task assessment scores.

Conclusions: The quality assessments of students’ weekly tasks would be an effective predictor to assess student’s preclinical performance. Thus, it would be recommended that integrating weekly task assessment into the preclinical restorative dentistry curriculum as an effective assessment tool.

Keywords

• Preclinical examination,restorative dentistry,dental education

References

1. [1] Ayar MK. Dental students’ perceptions on preclinical restorative dentistry course: Biruni University case. Eur Res J 2018;4:199-204.
2. [2] Luck O, Reitemeier B, Scheuch K. Testing of fine motor skills in dental students. Eur J Dent Educ 2000;4:10-4.
3. [3] Ben-Gal G, Katorza L, Weiss EI, Ziv A. Testing motor learning curves among dental students. J Dent Educ 2017;81:1171-8.
4. [4] Suksudaj N, Townsend G, Kaidonis J, Lekkas D, Winning T. Acquiring psychomotor skills in operative dentistry: do innate ability and motivation matter? Eur J Dent Educ 2012;16:e187-94.
5. [5] Velayo BC, Stark PC, Eisen SE, Kugel G. Using dental students’ preclinical performance as an indicator of clinical success. J Dent Educ 2014;78:823-8.
6. [6] Chaiken SR, Kyllonen PC, Tirre WC. Organization and components of psychomotor ability. Cogn Psychol 2000;40:198-226.
7. [7] Polychronopoulou A, Divaris K. Perceived sources of stress among Greek dental students. J Dent Educ 2005;69:687-92.
8. [8] Abu-Ghazaleh SB, Sonbol HN, Rajab LD. A longitudinal study of psychological stress among undergraduate dental students at the University of Jordan. BMC Med Educ 2016;16:90.