Dentistry Faculty Members’ Lived Experiences of Obstacles in Institutionalizing Performance Assessments to Implement Professional Competency-Based Evaluation: A Qualitative Study

Abstract

Background Evaluation is one of the main components of the learning and teaching process, which indicates the achievement rate of educational goals and also quality of education. The objective of this study was to evaluate dentistry faculty members’ lived experiences of obstacles in institutionalizing performance assessments to implement professional competency-based evaluation as a qualitative study.Methods This study was conducted with a qualitative approach by using a semi-structured interview in a focus group discussion, in which the experiences of clinical dentistry faculty members regarding obstacles of using performance assessments and faculty members’ approaches to conducting professional competency-based evaluation were analyzed. The participants of the study were faculty members of the dentistry and medical education faculties. The purposive sampling technique was used and continued until reaching saturation. Five focus group discussions were conducted with 14 dentistry faculty members and three medical education faculty members. The data was analyzed by using thematic analysis.Results Analysis of interviews yielded 450 codes which were placed in three general categories of “current condition of clinical education”, “obstacles of implementing new evaluation methods”, and “requirements for effective evaluation of clinical skills”.Conclusions Based on the analysis of dentistry faculty members’ responses, creating changes by the faculty members appeared to be necessary. They are in fact moving towards creating changes in traditional evaluation methods. This change of paradigm requires support from the department and provision of infrastructures is deemed necessary. Also, in order to enhance motivation, spiritual support of the active faculty members should be taken into consideration and educational innovation should find its place in the promotion of faculty members.