(PO-002) Assessing Student and Faculty Views on Dental Clinical Education

Author: Madison Hockaday, B.S. – Dental Student, Harvard School of Dental Medicine
Author: Rubee Sandhu – Dental Student, Harvard School of Dental Medicine
Author: Sang E. Park, D.D.S., MMSc – Associate Dean for Dental Education, Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, School of Dental Medicine
Author: Susha Rajadurai, BDS MA FHEA – King's College London
Submitter: Madison Hockaday, B.S. – Dental Student, Harvard School of Dental Medicine

Intro: Dental education reform has been a focus for many schools over recent years, particularly in light of the COVID-19 pandemic. The purpose of the presented study was to assess faculty and student preferences for feedback styles, learning modalities in the clinical setting, and transitioning from the preclinical to clinical environments. 
 

Methods: Two separate surveys were distributed via Qualtrics (Qualtrics®, Provo, UT) to clinical faculty and students from the Harvard School of Dental Medicine classes of 2021 and 2022. Feedback style choices consisted of auditory, visual, and kinesthetic. The auditory, visual, and kinesthetic modalities consisted of verbal, diagrammatic, and hands-on explanations, respectively. The study was approved by the Institutional Review Board at Harvard Medical School and Harvard School of Dental Medicine (IRB # 23843-01).
 

Results: Student respondents indicated that they prefer constructive criticism followed by positive feedback in the clinical setting, whereas the majority of faculty respondents indicated the opposite (Fig. 1). Respondents were then asked to rank the teaching/learning modalities they most often use in the clinic setting. The majority of students indicated that they prefer an auditory learning modality the most and a combination of auditory, visual, and kinesthetic modalities the least. Conversely, a combination of auditory, visual, and kinesthetic teaching modalities received a plurality of the faculty votes for the most- and least-used option (Fig. 2). Students indicated more negative views regarding the transition to the clinical setting than faculty. More students responded that they “strongly disagree” or “disagree'' that the overall transition to the clinical setting was smooth and they received adequate guidance from faculty (Fig. 3). 
 

Conclusion: Discrepancies in student and faculty responses to questions centering on feedback preferences, teaching/learning modality preferences, and transitioning to the clinical environment indicate potential avenues to explore for future development efforts.Fig. 1: Fig. 2:Fig. 3: