Session 6.2: Lessons learned from evaluating clinical competency assessments in a problem-based, graduate entry Dentistry course

Hyde, Sarah

With the increasing emphasis placed on lifelong, self-directed learning, professional courses are increasingly expected to graduate students who have the capacity to self-assess their knowledge and skills, take active steps to rectify these deficiencies, and who have superior critical thinking and clinical problem solving skills (Tedesco, 1990). To this end, there has been an increase in the number of professional courses engaging with a problem-based learning pedagogy, first established at McMaster University, Ontario in the 1970’s.

To date, there have been at least five medical schools in Australia who have taken up this pedagogy and the University of Sydney’s Faculty of Dentistry is the first Dental school in Australia to embrace this teaching methodology. To this end, the reporting of feedback to date is important if other dental schools are considering the change to this style of curriculum delivery. The aim of this paper study is to investigate student perceptions of their first formative and summative clinical competencies assessment in the Bachelor of Dentistry (BDent) course.

One of the aims of presenting this data is that other Faculties, if they do not already do so, may see the advantage of implementing such evaluations. It is increasingly necessary in terms of accountability, but it can also improve assessment practice. It is hoped that by viewing these results and our lessons learned in the early stages of the course, that others may learn from this and improve the assessment process for their own students.