Education satisfaction and self-assessment of competency among new general dentists in Korea

Abstract

Dental education is gradually transitioning to competency-based education system, which aims to help dentists achieve certain core competencies by means of various systems, such as curriculum accreditation. This study examined satisfaction with dental school education and the differences in the perceived importance and self-assessment of competencies among general dentists, in an attempt to propose a desirable direction for dental education. A questionnaire was administered to new general dentists who graduated from a dental school within the past 10 years. The results of the survey were analyzed using the Importance-Performance Analysis to understand differences in dentists' perceptions. Overall satisfaction with education was low in terms of the curriculum's relevance to actual practice and its capacity for cultivating required competencies. Furthermore, many of the respondents strongly perceived the need to improve dental education. Additional investigations into the satisfaction with education showed no difference. Among the seven key competency domains, dentists perceived Health Promotion to be important and also assessed themselves as having high competence. However, regarding the perceived importance of the remaining domains, self-assessment of competence was low for Professionalism, Communication & Interpersonal Skills, Knowledge Base, Information Handling & Critical Thinking, Clinical Information Gathering, Diagnosis & Treatment Planning, and Establishment & Maintenance of Oral Health. The results of this study suggest that a competency-based education model should be developed and incorporated into dental education to set performance standards and to promote systematic self-assessment in order to foster the development of competence in dental students.