Work shadowing in dental teaching practices: evaluation results of a collaborative study between university and general dental practices

摘要

The aim of this study was to investigate the acceptance and assessment of work shadowing carried out by students and dentists in dental practices. Furthermore, the extent to which students perceive an improvement in their specialised, communication and social competencies, was to be examined. 61 dental students in their clinical semesters at a German university participated in work shadowing placements at 27 different general dental practices. Before beginning, they received checklists of various competencies that they self-assessed using school grades (from 1?=?‘very good’, to 6?=?‘failed’), which they also repeated after completion. The dentists supplemented this with their external assessments. In addition, the students were requested to fill out a 54-item questionnaire and compose a freely-structured report after the work shadowing; the dentists filled out a questionnaire containing 16 items. The statistical analysis was carried out by means of the Friedman Test, including a post-hoc test (Bonferroni-Holm correction). The analysis showed a significant overall improvement in the students’ self-assessed competencies by 0.71*?±?0.43 grades. With an average of 0.33*?±?0.36, the dentists’ external assessment proved significantly higher than the self-assessment. The greatest improvements were perceived by the students in the areas of accounting (1.17*?±?0.77), practice organisation (1.05*?±?0.61) and dentist’s discussions (0.94* ±0.80) [*p?