Job requirements compared to dental school education: impact of a case-based learning curriculum

Introduction: Case-based learning (CBL) is suggested as a key educational method of knowledge acquisition to improve dental education. The purpose of this study was to assess graduates from a patient-oriented, case-based learning (CBL)-based curriculum as regards to key competencies required at their professional activity. Methods: 407 graduates from a patient-oriented, case-based learning (CBL) dental curriculum who graduated between 1990 and 2006 were eligible for this study. 404 graduates were contacted between 2007 and 2008 to self-assess nine competencies as required at their day-to-day work and as taught in dental school on a 6-point Likert scale. Baseline demographics and clinical characteristics were presented as mean ± standard deviation (SD) for continuous variables. To determine whether dental education sufficiently covers the job requirements of physicians, we calculated the mean difference ∆ between the ratings of competencies as required in day-to-day work and as taught in medical school by subtracting those from each other (negative mean difference ∆ indicates deficit; positive mean difference ∆ indicates surplus). Spearman’s rank correlation coefficient was calculated to reveal statistical significance (statistical significance p
GMS Zeitschrift für Medizinische Ausbildung; 29(4):Doc54; ISSN 1860-3572