Journal article
Assessment of Critical Thinking in a First-Year Dental Curriculum
Medical science educator, Vol.30(1), pp.367-374
03/01/2020
DOI: 10.1007/s40670-020-00914-3
PMCID: PMC8368616
PMID: 34457679
Abstract
We studied how students in a Doctor of Dental Surgery (DDS) program perceived the importance of critical thinking and the extent to which critical thinking was perceived to be included in each of 25 courses of the first-year curriculum at The University of Texas School of Dentistry at Houston (UTSD). Sixty-nine of the 102 second-year students who were invited participated in an online survey. The survey had three parts, with all statements of each part evaluated on a five-point Likert scale ranging from strongly agree to strongly disagree. The first two parts assessed the importance of critical thinking in dental education and the criteria by which critical thinking in didactic curriculum can be measured. In the third part of the survey, students evaluated how well each course of the first-year curriculum achieved critical thinking. More than 90% of the respondents strongly agreed/agreed that critical thinking is essential to making clinical decisions. Students strongly agreed/agreed that 19 of 25 of the courses incorporated critical thinking. However, when students were asked to rank the top five of the 25 courses, only two courses (Human Biology, Neuroscience) emerged above all others in their weighted ranks, with another seven courses standing out, leaving 16 courses with low weighted rankings for their inclusion of critical thinking. In summary, students agreed on the importance of critical thinking in dental education, and on the criteria by which the incorporation of critical thinking should be measured in didactic and pre-clinical courses.
Details
- Title: Subtitle
- Assessment of Critical Thinking in a First-Year Dental Curriculum
- Creators
- Dharini van der Hoeven - The University of Texas Health Science Center at HoustonThuy Trang LeAnn Truong - The University of Texas Health Science Center at HoustonJulian Nathaniel Holland - The University of Texas Health Science Center at HoustonRyan L. Quock - The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston
- Resource Type
- Journal article
- Publication Details
- Medical science educator, Vol.30(1), pp.367-374
- DOI
- 10.1007/s40670-020-00914-3
- PMID
- 34457679
- PMCID
- PMC8368616
- NLM abbreviation
- Med Sci Educ
- ISSN
- 2156-8650
- eISSN
- 2156-8650
- Publisher
- Springer US
- Number of pages
- 8
- Language
- English
- Date published
- 03/01/2020
- Academic Unit
- Oral Pathology, Radiology and Medicine; Dentistry Administration
- Record Identifier
- 9985157464302771
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