Appraisal of psychomotor skills of dental students at University Complutense of Madrid

Abstract

The aim of this study was to evaluate the psychomotor skills of the dental students at University Complutense of Madrid (UCM), using a battery of psychometric tests. The sample comprised 306 students of the 1st, 2nd, 3rd and 4th years of Odontology, who, during the last month of the academic term, took the test on rotation of solid shapes, the Embedded Figures test in its group form (GEFT), the O'Connor Tweezer test, the MacQuarrie test for mechanical ability and the indirect vision test. Before these tests began, some personal data of all students were collected. The results showed some statistically significant correlation between several personal variables (sex, manual dominance and previous skills) and performance in the psychometric tests, although no significant relation was found between these variables and the students' academic qualifications. When comparisons were made between the psychomotor tests and the academic results of the students, significant differences appeared in the tracing and dotting subtests of the MacQuarrie test, whereby those students with higher practical qualifications reached the best punctuation. In the O'Connor Tweezer test, the students who obtained the worst results were those with lower qualifications. These data could serve to detect at an early stage those students who need greater educational support. No relation was found between the GEFT and the indirect vision test.

Relationship Between Spatial Abilities, Mental Rotation and Functional Anatomy Learning

“…This finding complies with traditionally reported gender effects, slightly lower female scores being commonly reported Cano and Marquez, 1995;De Andres et al, 2004), due to multifaceted factors. As functional anatomy requires students to form and manipulate mental representation of a cross-section of anatomy-like structures incorporating some spatial characteristics, women were expected having greater difficulty in generating and manipulating such mental images, due to less spatial ability, as observed in numerous human cognition experiments (for review, see Jones et al, 2003).…”

Is manual dexterity essential in the selection of dental students?

“…This fi nding is very important and in agreement with those of Gansky, 4 Luck 26 and de Andres 27 who feel that manual dexterity can be educated and improved by means of exercise and that tests to assess manual dexterity should be mainly used for identifying those subjects in need of a more careful, attentive and monitored …”

“…[18][19][20][21][22][23][24][25][26][27] The formulation of exercises measur ing basic performance was inspired by a careful analysis of specifi c aspects of manual dexterity, aimed at break ing down complex behaviours into their simpler components. Therefore, exer cises investigated both specifi c abilities and the capacity to effectively combine sub-abilities.…”

Acquiring psychomotor skills in operative dentistry: do innate ability and motivation matter?

“…However, the study by de Andres et al. (16) showed that scores on the O’Connor tweezer dexterity test could predict poor performance of students in a preclinical dental programme. The inconsistencies in findings from these studies may be explained by the researchers choosing tests that did not sample across all abilities of skill acquisition theory (1).…”