title: Developing a formative assessment model to enhance dental students pre-clinical learning
Creators: name: Rung, Andrea C
Publisher: name: Griffith University
Year: 2024
Subjects: subject: dentistry
subject: education
subject: formative assessment

description: Studies indicate that formative assessment strategies enhance learning and promote self-regulated lifelong learners: A quality expected from all health professionals to safely treat patients. Very early in their careers, dental students undergo intensive psychomotor skills training in simulated preclinical settings. This ensures students can safely operate on patients. Since implementing a formative assessment method in the preclinical setting could enhance learning and promote self-regulation, this was the aim of this dissertation. Developing such method started in chapter 1 with an overview of the literature on formative assessments identifying and defining key concepts in the context of higher education. Chapter 2 a systematic review of the literature identified formative assessment strategies reported in peer reviewed journals. It found that students' self-assessment and rubrics were strategies used and reported while strategies using exemplars were underreported or underutilised. The review showed that methods used to collate, collect, and distribute feedback were poorly described or recorded. Indicators of students' ability to appraise quality and their learning progress were problematic and limited to numerical scores. Further, these indicators provide little information about students' ability to articulate rationales and solutions. In addition, students' ability to identify quality was measured by comparing their self-awarded scores with their tutors' scores. In Chapter 3, a scale for assessing students' perceptions of exemplars was devised and its reliability and validity were confirmed. The study revealed that students frequently valued exemplars accessible through social media nearly as much as those provided by their instructors. Nonetheless, it remains uncertain whether students are capable of accurately assessing the quality of exemplars encountered on the internet. Chapter 4, A non-randomised controlled crossover trial with two interventions arms was implemented in to determine students' ability to judge the quality of composite restorations depicted in photos and its impact on students' preclinical skills. In line with findings in Chapter 2, this formative assessment strategy included self-assessment and the use of rubrics. To collect, collate and disseminate feedback to students and measure the impact of the learning strategy, a simple but powerful information technology system was implemented, and described. Descriptive scores were accompanied with rational and possible solutions showing students' understood quality and how to achieve it. No significant differences were found between the control and intervention groups, but students were able to identify the quality of exemplars and their comments were consistent with their scores. In addition, the results suggest self-assessment scores indicate students' confidence rather than their ability to identify quality. Chapter 5 compared traditional teacher scoring with 3D surface analysis as a method to evaluate students' ability to restore teeth's contours with composite. Restorations from the study in chapter 4, were scanned and their STL files analysed for fitting with a digital reference using a surface matching software. Tutors' scores and 3D analysis showed students' restorations improved after six sessions of practice. 3D surface analysis of models could be used to assess students' restorations optimising feedback by making it more objective and promoting students' independent learning. This dissertation's methods and findings added to the current knowledge of dental education. It created instruments to further the research on formative assessments and, by publishing the findings, it promotes the advancement of learning and teaching around the world.