Dental Students' Perception Towards Effective Clinical Feedback and Assessment

Supervised practice in the dental clinic is one of the teaching tools in preparing a good dental practitioner. Teachers who are efficient in helping students learn in these settings improve this process. The ability to impart good feedback and carry out proper assessment is an important measure of effectiveness. Objective: The purpose of this study was to investigate the perception of students from the Faculty of Dentistry, University of Malaya towards effective clinical feedback and assessment from the staff of the Dept. of Conservative Dentistry. Method: A 4-point Likert-type scale questionnaire was formulated according to Myers, 1977 (J.Dent.Edu 41:68-76). Aspects of clinical feedback and assessment in the questionnaire include:- 1) the ability to be critical in assessing students' work, 2) the usage of criterion-based assessment and 3) the manner in which feedback are given to students. One hundred and sixty dental students from Year IV and V participated in this survey. Results: Generally, student responses showed that assessment and clinical feedback were carried out by staff. The data were subjected to two statistical procedures; exploratory factor analysis and Rasch rating scale analysis. Factor analysis indicated that all 3 constructs were clearly measured by the items in the questionnaire. Rasch rating scale analysis revealed logit values of -0.78 and -0.18 for the usage of criterion-based assessment when assessing students' clinical work. The highest logit value of 0.45, 0.37 and 0.34 were for the third construct; the students would like feedback be given privately and with a view to helping them improve their clinical performance. Conclusion: Students place great emphasis on the manner feedback is given and assessment is conducted of their clinical performance. This record was migrated from the OpenDepot repository service in June, 2017 before shutting down