Comparison of Digital Self-Assessment Systems and Faculty Feedback for Tooth Preparation in a Preclinical Simulation

Background: Regarding the new dental licensing regulations in Germany (AOZ), this study evaluated the effectiveness of two different digital tooth preparation validation systems in comparison to traditional faculty feedback. Methods: Participants were randomly divided into groups: Faculty Feedback (FF: n = 33), PrepCheck® (PC: n = 32) and Dental Teacher™ (n = 32). Students had the task to prepare tooth 16 for a retentive full-cast crown. Preparations could be repeated as often as desired. Feedback was provided either by faculty staff or by digital validation systems only. Exams were conducted and graded by two independent and experienced examiners. A survey was performed to evaluate the assessment concepts. Results: No statistical difference in examination performance between groups could be observed. Nevertheless, the survey showed participants preferred consulting the faculty staff rather than the digital validation systems. Students preferred practising with DT rather than with PC. Conclusions: Although both classical and digital methods showed comparable results regarding the preparation examination performance, direct feedback by the faculty staff is still appreciated by the students. A combination of both methods is mandatory since demonstration and advice by the teacher is needed. However, digital tooth preparation validation systems are predestined for free practice sessions, providing self-assessment.

Prospective Factors that Predict American Board of Surgery In-Training Examination Performance: A Systematic Review

Introduction American Board of Surgery In-Training Examination (ABSITE) performance has become an important factor when monitoring resident progress. Understanding which prospective factors predict performance can help identify residents at risk. Methods A literature search was conducted searching PubMed, EMBASE, and JAMA Network from June 2011 to June 2021, in accordance with the PRISMA guidelines. Searches were performed for the terms “ABSITE” and “American Board of Surgery In-Training Examination.” Prospective factors such as prior examination performance, clinical evaluations, and demographics were evaluated. Results A final 35 studies were included. The prospective factor most consistently found to predict ABSITE performance is performance on prior knowledge-based examinations such as the USMLE step exams. The ACGME Medical Knowledge 1 milestone evaluation also appears to correlate to ABSITE performance, although clinical evaluations, in general, do not. Demographics have no significant correlation to ABSITE performance. Discussion Using performance on prior knowledge-based examinations programs may be able to identify residents at risk for failing ABSITE. It may be possible to initiate early intervention before rather than only remediation after poor performance.

Students’ Cognitive Test Anxiety and Secondary School Examination Performance: Moderating Effect of Gender and School Sector

Despite a bulk of research in international context investigating the relationship of cognitive test anxiety with students’ academic performance, little work has yet been done in this area on samples of students in Pakistan. This correlational design study was, therefore, conducted to examine the relationship between secondary school students’ cognitive test anxiety and their examination performance in educational context of Pakistan and to ascertain how the direction and/or strength of this relationship may be moderated by students’ gender and their school sector. Data were collected on students’ cognitive test anxiety, total obtained marks in SSC examination and obtained marks in English along with students’ gender and school sector from 1712 mixed ability students enrolled in year 11 in 91 public and private institutions. Both the descriptive and inferential statistical techniques (i.e., Mean, SD and Independent samples t-test) along with Pearson’s R correlations and hierarchical multiple regression were performed to analyze the data. Results depicted that female sample students reported higher level of cognitive test anxiety in comparison to their male counterparts. Results also suggested a small but significant negative effect of cognitive test anxiety on students’ examination performance and that student cognitive test anxiety component accounted for 10% of variance in their examination performance. Results further revealed that the magnitude of relationship between students’ cognitive test anxiety and examination total point scores do not change much for the moderating variables and these variables accounted only for 3% of variance. The magnitude of moderating effect, however, found to be somewhat stronger in the school sector in comparison to students’ gender.

An Evaluation on Dental Students’ Performance during the First Year of Covid-19 Pandemic

As with other university programs, dental school has been affected during the Covid-19 pandemic due to physical distancing and clinical restriction. Covid-19 pandemic changes the original method of study with the swift shift to online learning, which may affect students’ performance. The objective of this study was to assess the effect of online learning methods on the final examination performance for dental undergraduate students in their clinical years in a public university in Malaysia. One-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) and post-hoc Tukey tests were conducted to compare the effect of learning methods on the mean examination score, by comparing clinical students from the year of 2018 and 2019 face-to-face (f2f) learning method as compared to fully online learning in 2020. The analysis shows that there is a statistically significant difference on final exam performance at p < 0.05 for Year 3 [F (2, 102) = 11.68] and Year 5 [F(2, 95) = 22.32]. Post-hoc Tukey HSD test indicates that the mean examination result for 2019 is significantly different from 2020 and 2018 even though the same learning method was employed for the latter. There was also no statistically significant difference for when the 2020 cohort is compared to the 2018 cohort for both Year 3 and Year 5. There was no statistically significant difference in mean examination score across all cohorts for Year 4 students. Although limited in scope, the conclusion of this study was that, f2f learning method has no significant difference with online learning in terms of final examination performance.