Effect of self-assessment training in preclinical endodontic courses on the clinical performance of undergraduate dental students

Background Root canal treatment (RCT) of molar teeth is very challenging to undergraduate dental students. Well-structured self-assessment was shown to be the key for improving quality of dental education so that graduates could be properly prepared to act independently in dental practice. Aims To observe the effect of rubric self-assessment teaching during the preclinical stage on the performance of undergraduate students in treating patients’ molars. Methods An improved rubric was introduced to the endodontic preclinical stage through which 128 students were trained on self-assessing their practical work over an entire year (Group A). While 149 students (Group B) were taught without self-assessment. The following year, during the clinical stage, both groups were asked to treat single rooted teeth only, after they finish at least ten teeth, students who feel confident enough were allowed to do simple molar cases. The effect of new system on the ability of undergraduate students to perform root canal treatment on patients’ molars was studied. Results All students taught on self-assessment where able to perform RCT on patients’ on molars before graduation (100 per cent) in comparison to 73.83 per cent for the students of the previous groups. There was statistically significant difference for the average number of molars treated per student: 6.06 for Group A in comparison to 3.00 for Group B. All analysis was performed with 0.05 level of set significance using the statistical software SPSS 16.0 for Windows. Conclusion When cases are properly selected, ttechnical part of root canal treatment must not be time consuming if the student is properly trained on how to assess his own work