Levels of agreement between student and staff assessments of clinical skills in performing cavity preparation in artificial teeth

A selection of abstracts of clinically relevant papers from other journals. The abstracts on this page have been chosen and edited by John R. Radford.

Abstract

For criteria such as the 'angle of entry' and 'holding instrument', is it really of concern if 'students tend to overrate the quality of their performance when compared with staff ratings'?

Main

San Diego JP, Newton T et al. Eur J Dent Educ 2013: DOI: 10.1111/eje.12059

'Reflection', 'reflective' and 'self' is referred to over one hundred times in the document Preparing for Practice (www.gdc-uk.org). Using five criteria, this study compared what beginners judged their performance when removing simulated occlusal caries in phantom head teeth, with that graded by tutors. There was agreement between the beginners and tutors for the following key cavity preparation criteria: 1) 'Removal of caries from cavity wall' (but in one part only, of this two-part study), 2) 'Removal of caries from cavity floor', and 3) 'Avoiding pulpal exposure'. The authors suggest that 'student demographic characteristics such as age, gender, ethnicity and educational background' could influence their self-ratings. This study only explores one small aspect of a 'clinical' domain. It would be more difficult to set valid measures to compare the performance in the other learning domains of 'communication', 'professionalism' and 'management and leadership'.