Performance of Dental Therapy Students in an Operative Skills Course

Objectives: To test the null hypothesis that there is no difference in the performance of diploma dental therapy and degree dental surgery students in the summative assessments of a basic operative skills course.

Methods: Dental therapy (n=105) and dental surgery (n=335) students were taught basic operative dentistry techniques in mixed course groups. They were assessed by means of practical skills tests, written evidence-based reports and an observed simulated clinical examination (OSCE) by anonymised, mixed course processes. Assessment data were collated for 4 academic sessions (2009 to 2012). ANCOVA (academic session and course as fixed factors) was used to detect statistical differences in performance (p<0.05 with 95% confidence interval).

Results: For each assessment there were small, although statistically significant, differences in performance between courses. For both the OSCE and practical assessments dental therapy students performed better than dentistry students. Conversely, in written reports dentistry students performed statistically better than therapy students.

There were also differences in performance between academic sessions. In the OSCE this could be related to the standard setting process but there is no clear reason why there should be differences in the written reports. When the OSCE and report data were normalized across sessions the same pattern of student performance was seen (Table 1).

Conclusion: These data show that the achievement of learning outcomes in a clinical skills course by dental therapy and dental surgery students is equivalent, with the diploma students performing better in skills-based assessments.