Student’s Satisfaction of Two Evaluation Methods During Clinical Teaching

Objectives: A frequent approach during clinical teaching is the fulfillment of “specific clinical procedures”. This often results in the selection of patients that meet the requirements of the course undermining professional ethics. In this study we have evaluated the satisfaction of students subjected to two different evaluation methods during their clinical training.
Methods: A total of 120 students from the fourth year of the undergraduate program in Dentistry at Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile were included in this study. These students experienced the “clinical schemes” method during a clinical course in pediatric dentistry and the “specific clinical procedures” method during a clinical course in adults. The “clinical scheme” method gave a score considering the level of difficulty of each patient and the “specific clinical procedure” method considered the completion of specific clinical procedures. Filling questionnaires and developing focus groups through a qualitative approach measured student’s satisfaction.

Results: Students revealed a positive perception for the “clinical schemes” method. This positive evaluation was given in all dimensions consulted, namely, content validity, instructional and consequential. The students identified that the “clinical schemes” method was more focused on the patients needs and a higher level of care for the patient; it generated better relationships between students, professor, the families and patients; decreased student’s stress; and increased motivation and satisfaction. However, the students showed concern regarding the training of more complex clinical competences that some students did not perform during the “clinical schemes” method.

Conclusions: Students agreed on the importance of maintaining the “clinical schemes” method, but at the same time, they considered it was necessary to improve the training of specific procedures. More studies are needed to evaluate these two evaluation methods for the same clinical course.