Selfassessment of Tooth Preparation Among Preclinical Undergraduate Students Compared to the Course Rating - A Pilot Study. (Preparation - Olympics)

Objectives: Evaluation of dental pre-clinical courses showed that even after successful completion of the course, students demostrated uncertainties regarding qualitative assessment of their own preparation.
To investigate the effect of a teaching project aiming at self-assessment skills of students with respect to their own preparation.
Methods: Fifty-one students of the pre-clinical phantom course II in prosthodontics took part at the "Preparation-Olympics" (33 female/18 male).The mean age was 23.4 ± 2.5 years. The project was divided into 4 sections: tooth preparation, self-assessment of the preparation according to present preparation guidelines, moderated group work, discussion of the results and determine the olympic-winner in the plenum. The Duration was set at 120 minutes for the whole project.

Results: Self-assessment and investigator evaluation differed significantly (p < 0.05) depending on the assigned score. Superior students were far more critical with their preparations than less successful students. Half of the students confirmed conclusively improving the capacity for self-evaluation. The students claimed to have benefited the most from Sections 1 and 2.

Conclusions: Teaching projects such as the “preparation olympics”, which is based on the concept of the moderated quality circle, can help to improve the self-appraisal of the students concerning to the assessment of their preparations.