Work

Impact of dental school critical thinking demonstrations carryover to practice: Survey of 5‐year graduates

Year: 2024

Type: article

Abstract: INTRODUCTION: Little literature exists on graduates' application to practice for explicit critical thinking skills learned in dental school. PURPOSES: Discern the (1) degree to which graduates apply explicit critical thinking skillsets in practice; (2) degree of adaptation of critical thinking skillsets to practice; (3) frequency of use for critical thinking skillsets in practice; and (4) perceptions to improve critical thinking learning guidance in dental school. METHODS: Five critical thinking exercises/skillsets were selected that had been in place over 5 years with at least one paper: geriatrics, treatment planning, technology decision making, ethics, evidence-based dentistry; each followed concepts from an emulation model in critical thinking. Electronic survey administered in 2023/2024 to alumni graduated in the last 5 years. RESULTS: Of 98 (from 320 distributed) returned, 56 completed the entire survey. Dental school experiences positively influenced use of critical thinking skills in practice. On a five-point scale, mostly 4s and 5s were reported for "…benefit your thinking." Fifty-three percent reported "using ideas from the exercise and developed my own thought processes," 35% reported "using the thought process largely as offered in the college" and 5% reported "do not use the exercise." Sixty percent reported using the skillsets hourly or daily. With minor variations all skillsets were reported positively for use in practice. CONCLUSIONS: A positive influence of critical thinking skills was gained from the college experience with explicit positive impact for each of the five critical thinking experiences. The questions may be a model for future follow-up studies of explicit dental school critical thinking exercises.

Source: Journal of Dental Education

DOI: 10.1002/jdd.13695