Admission systems to dental school in Europe: a closer look at Flanders

Abstract

Dental education in Europe faces enormous challenges. One deals with the admission to dental school. Although admission procedures vary considerably across Europe, a characteristic of some systems is that the same procedure is used across students who will ultimately pursue different majors (medical or dental). This is based on the assumptions that there is no significant difference in these students' scores and that the requirements for medicine and dentistry are equal. This study examines these assumptions in the admission exam 'Medical and Dental Studies' in Flanders. Students who pass may choose whether they start medical or dental education. Over an 8-year period (2000-2007), admission exam scores of students starting medicine (n = 4492) were compared to those of students starting dentistry (n = 547). Second, the validity of this exam is examined for both medical and dental education. It was found that students starting dentistry had a significantly lower total score on the admission exam than students starting medicine. Differences were especially striking for the cognitive part of the admission exam. For both medical and dental students, the admission exam score was a valid predictor of academic grades in the first 3 years, although correlations were lower for dental education. These results have implications for admission procedures in countries where the same system is used for both majors. The findings that students who have a lower score choose dental education and that the validity of the exam is slightly lower for dentistry, raise questions about using the same admission exam for two obviously different majors

Exponential growth of dental schools in Chile: effects on academic, economic and workforce issues

“…Accordingly, educational access to this field has been reserved to young people with a high academic performance, and-because often accompanied by high tuition costs-to the higher classes, making it an elite career, very similar to medicine. [1][2][3][4][5] In the past 50 years, industrialized countries have seen a steady improvement in their oral health levels, mainly due to public health strategies aimed at promotion and prevention (fluoride, sealants, and hygiene). This contrasts with the increased levels of oral disease suffered by the inhabitants of developing countries 6 such as Chile, or deprived populations, where there is great disparity in access to dental care, such as the US.…”

A literature review of the predictive validity of European dental school selection methods

“…35,[60][61][62][63][64][65] Most papers were from the United Kingdom (n = 9) 5,28,29,34,58,59,62,64,65 and reported studies from six different dental schools. Sweden provided four studies from two institutions, 30,35,61,63 whilst the remaining studies were from Austria (n = 2), 33,54 Belgium (n = 2), 32,56 Germany (n = 2), 31,55 Ireland (n = 1) 60 and Italy (n = 1). 57…”

“…However, in most cases, the strength of relationship (r), evaluated using Cohen's conventions 68 (0.10 weak, 0.30 moderate, 0.5 strong), was a weak correlation between only part of the selection test or outcome measure (n = 9). 5,29,30,55,56,[59][60][61]67 In some cases, correlations were reported between a section of an admission test, 5,29,30,61,64,65 such as a single interview question, and/or small sections of the outcome measure, 28,30,31,54,55 such as a single examination result. Three authors reported a negative correlation between the method of selection and their outcome measure.…”

“…Seven papers reported on a selection process which included multiple tests. 30,33,35,56,61,63,67 These selection processes used a variety of personal qualities, 30,35,56,61,63 cognitive ability, 30,33,56,61,67 knowledge 33,35,56,63,67 and psychomotor skills 30,33,61 to arrive at a total admission score which was then compared with performance at a later date. Buyse also reported the Flemish admissions examination (FAE) in a separate study.…”

“…Buyse also reported the Flemish admissions examination (FAE) in a separate study. 56 In this study, the subsections of the test were not investigated separately and instead the total result of the cognitive (including knowledge), silent reading and situational judgement test was compared with students GPA in years 1-3. A weak but significant correlation was found between students FAE score and GPA in years 1 (r = 0.21) and 2 (r = 0.14) of dental studies but not Year 3.…”