Self-assessment in postgraduate dental education and practice as a learning tool: A questionnaire study

Abstract

BACKGROUND: Self-assessment (SA) as a learning skill ascends engagement in learning but also promotes learners to take responsibility in understanding their current performance and revise on shortcomings. Pedagogical strategies involving the role of self-assessment skills at varied levels of curriculum, classroom, portfolios, and reflective writing are evidenced in the literature. Health-care providers have to continuously implement changes and keep upgrading their knowledge to fetch better results during their professional career actuating the necessity of SA during students’ training. Although recommendations from the Commission on Dental Accreditation to incorporate self-assessment as early as in predoctoral education have been emphasized, the need to enforce it in the Indian curriculum is not realized. The purpose of this study was to ascertain dental postgraduate students’ perceptions of self-assessment and how it related to their performance in the classroom and in the clinic. MATERIAL AND METHODS: This is a cross-sectional study to assess the awareness and perception of SA, carried out among 120 dental postgraduate students. Over a three-month period, postgraduate students from our institution across all three years participated. A prevalidated, self-administered structured questionnaire that was pilot tested and further given to the participants was used to collect the data. Data were interpreted and analyzed. RESULTS: With an overall mean score of 4.101 ± 0.352, the relevance of employing self-assessment as a learning tool obtained the highest mean score among 2nd-year postgraduate dental students (4.167 ± 0.306) and the lowest among 1st-year postgraduate dental students (3.975 ± 0.477). A one-way analysis of variance test revealed that the total year-wise mean score difference was statistically significant. The mean score for using self-assessment as a learning tool varied significantly between 1st-year postgraduate students and those in their 2nd and 3rd years, but not significantly between 2nd- and 3rd-year postgraduate students, according to a post hoc test conducted among the study groups. This expression of results implies that postdoctoral students highly value SA skills as necessary for achieving a competent endpoint. CONCLUSION: The importance of self-assessment abilities in one’s academic and clinical performance is greatly valued by study participants. To comprehend the use of SA skills and quantify their utilization in performance evaluation, training programs are required.

Keywords

• dental education
• dental practice
• questionnaire study
• self-assessment