Improving the quality of educational strategies in postgraduate dental education using student and graduate feedback: findings from a qualitative study in New Zealand

Abstract

Introduction: Research suggests that students' perceptions should be considered in any discussion of their education. However, to date, there has been no systematic examination of New Zealand postgraduate dental students' learning processes in both the research and clinical settings. This study aimed to obtain in-depth qualitative insights into student and graduate perspectives of effective and ineffective learning experiences during their postgraduate dental education.Methods: Data were collected in 2010 using semi-structured individual interviews. Participants included 2010 final-year students and 2009 graduates of the University of Otago Doctor of Clinical Dentistry programme. Using the Critical Incident Technique, participants were asked to describe at least one effective and one ineffective learning experience in detail. Interview transcripts were analysed using a general inductive approach.Results: Broad themes which emerged included supervisory approaches, characteristics of the learning process and characteristics of the physical learning environment. The focus of this article is to report and discuss the learning processes that participants identified as promoting and precluding effective learning experiences in the clinical and research settings. Students and graduates in the study had largely similar perspectives of learning processes likely to result in effective clinical and research learning. These included self-directed and collaborative learning; timely, constructive and detailed feedback with directions for further improvement; and discreet clinical feedback. Learning processes that precluded effective learning included unsupported and isolated learning, delayed and overly critical/destructive feedback and open criticism in the clinical context. Conclusion:The in-depth findings of this study contribute to the scientific literature that identifies learning process characteristics which facilitate effective learning from New Zealand postgraduate students' and graduates' perspectives. Additional crosssectional and longitudinal studies (both qualitative and quantitative) would lead to a better understanding of what constitutes effective teaching in postgraduate dental education.New Zealand and the UK. In 2007, the Master of Dental Surgery (MDS) programme at the University of Otago (New Zealand) was also largely replaced by a professional doctorate programme, the Doctor of Clinical Dentistry (DClinDent)

The learning environment in professional doctorate and postgraduate dental education: a qualitative study

“…The findings reported in this article are a part of a larger project from which some findings have previously been published . The overall aim of the larger project was to explore the characteristics of effective and ineffective learning experiences in clinical, didactic and research settings, as identified by the 2010 final‐year DClinDent students and the first cohort of DClinDent graduates (completed in 2009).…”

“…The major themes included supervisory approaches, characteristics of the learning process and characteristics of the physical learning environment. Research findings related to supervisory approaches and specific parts of learning processes have been previously published. Those two published papers had distinctively different content, focus, scope and findings.…”

“…Research findings related to supervisory approaches and specific parts of learning processes have been previously published. Those two published papers had distinctively different content, focus, scope and findings. The findings presented in the current article are original and do not overlap with the earlier articles.…”

“…Hence, numbers are not provided in this article when reporting the findings, because quantification, empirical generalisability and statistical representativeness were not the principal aims. Further details of the research design have been previously published .…”

Need for Assessment of MDS Paper I Examination at the End of the First Year of MDS: A Survey

“…Studies suggest that students' perceptions should be considered in any discussion of their education. 1,2 The consensus opinion in the dental education literature is that teacher's and student's feedback on their learning experiences should inform all discussion and decisions relating to the education. [3][4][5][6] Researchers interested in eliciting students' feedback emphasize that attention to "student's voice" is important because they have distinctive perspectives of teaching and learning, which can offer in-depth information.…”