ABSTRACT
INTRODUCTION: This paper explores a novel pedagogy surrounding students' clinical practice sessions. Before each clinical session, student clinical groups meet and each student presents their treatment planned for that session. The teachers question their understanding and explore "what-if" and other management scenarios. Peers in the clinical group observe the presentation and learning dialogue. After the clinical session, students gather on the clinic to debrief their performance with the tutor. Peers observe this dialogue, the shared clinical experience. This paper explores students' perceptions of reflection before action and reflection on action surrounding their clinical practice. METHODS: Focus groups were conducted to explore this phenomenon and to create a questionnaire, which was administered to the whole class. Transcriptions of the focus groups and open-ended response in the questionnaire were subjected to a thematic analysis to identify emerging themes and supported by closed-ended question responses. RESULTS: Briefing sessions before clinical sessions helped students identify problems and clear doubts before entering clinics. Students were able to recall and rehearse the clinical procedural knowledge and felt well prepared and confident for patient care. Student sharing of knowledge with peers provided a broader learning experience and helped gain confidence. Students also reported to learn from the teacher facilitating their preparation for the session. Debriefing sessions after the clinical session allowed reflection and learning including error correction on their own and peer experiences. Students learnt personally, from peers and from the teacher, and emphasised the importance of the student-teacher relation. CONCLUSIONS: Briefing and debriefing sessions were highly valued by students for preparation and learning on clinics and in learning from peers. Briefing sessions cleared misunderstanding, prevented errors, broadened procedural knowledge and improved both confidence and clinical experience. Debriefing sessions facilitated reflective practice, error correction and prevention, and helped gain insights from teachers' own experience and perspectives.
Subject(s)
Education, Dental , Peer Group , Focus Groups , HumansABSTRACT
INTRODUCTION: This mixed methods study evaluates the use and perceptions of a novel video genre of authentic, in-the-moment expert-student dialogue to support student preparation for a summative clinical competence assessment. METHODS: Expert-student dialogue videos were available on the university learning management system (Moodle) for self-directed access for a fixed prosthodontics course. These comprised 3 categories of video relating to dialogic episodes of previous student's performance relating to a clinical competence assessment. These were as follows: case suitability, case discussion and self-evaluation. Fourteen students who were taking the competence test and had watched the supporting videos were invited for focus group interviews. Twelve students participated in three focus groups within 24 hours of the assessment and the audio recordings were analysed. A thematic analysis was performed using an inductive approach. Video access data were also retrieved and analysed based on when the videos were watched. RESULTS: Three key themes were identified: assessment preparation, enhanced learning and affordance phenomena. By accessing the videos, students gained insights into the case suitability, assessment process and criteria, and the examiners' expectations. They reported reduced uncertainty and stress, improved confidence and better preparedness for the assessment. Students also reported this video genre stimulated higher-order thinking and provided a broader clinical experience. A diverse array of viewing patterns was observed immediately before the assessment and across the year. For the focus group of students, they watched 65% of all their videos for the prosthodontics course one week before their competency testing periods. CONCLUSION: The expert-student dialogue videos that captured peers clinical competence tests improved students' assessment literacy, increased their assessment preparedness, reduced stress and enriched their learning.
Subject(s)
Clinical Competence , Education, Dental , Humans , Learning , Prosthodontics , Self-AssessmentABSTRACT
OBJECTIVES: Eye tracking has been used in medical radiology to understand observers' gaze patterns during radiological diagnosis. This study examines the visual identification ability of junior hospital dental officers (JHDOs) and dental surgery assistants (DSAs) in radiographic and nonradiographic images using eye tracking technology and examines if there is a correlation. MATERIAL AND METHODS: Nine JHDOs and nine DSAs examined six radiographic images and 16 nonradiographic images using eye tracking. The areas of interest (AOIs) of the radiographic images were rated as easy, medium, and hard, and the nonradiographic images were categorized as pattern recognition, face recognition, and image comparison. The participants were required to identify and locate the AOIs. Data analysis of the two domains, entire slide and AOI, was conducted by evaluating the eye tracking metrics (ETM) and the performance outcomes. ETM consisted of six parameters, and performance outcomes consisted of four parameters. RESULTS: No significant differences were observed for ETMs for JHDOs and DSAs for both radiographic and nonradiographic images. The JHDOs showed significantly higher percentage in identifying AOIs than DSAs for all the radiographic images (72.7% vs. 36.4%, p = .004) and for the easy categorization of radiographic AOIs (85.7% vs. 42.9%, p = .012). JHDOs with higher correct identification percentage in face recognition had a shorter dwell time in AOIs. CONCLUSIONS: Although no significant relation was observed between radiographic and nonradiographic images, there were some evidence that visual recognition skills may impact certain attributes of the visual search pattern in radiographic images.
