Agreement between faculty member assessments and student self‐assessments in a preclinical endodontic programme

Abstract

This study aimed to evaluate the agreement between faculty member assessments and student self-assessments regarding the latter's performance in a preclinical endodontic course. The data were collected from 30 undergraduate dental students enrolled in a preclinical endodontic course at Taibah University in Saudi Arabia during 2017-2018 academic year. One course coordinator calibrated the grading method and distributed it to all staff and students. Students were asked to appraise their own performance of a root canal treatment for a tooth with a single canal. After the student self-assessments, two staff members also graded student performance using the same grading scale. The assessment agreement was compared between student and faculty evaluations using a Wilcoxon signed-rank test with a 0.05 significance level. There was a significant difference (P < 0.05) between student and staff member assessment scores. Student scores were lower and had a weak reliability compared to those of staff members.

Comparison between students' self‐evaluation and faculty members' evaluation in a clinical endodontic course at King Saud University

“…Similar results were observed amongst medical students 33–35 . In contrast, Alrahabi et al showed that students tended to underrate their performance compared with scores given by staff members in a preclinical endodontic programme at Taibah University in Saudi Arabia 36 …”

“…[33][34][35] In contrast, Alrahabi et al showed that students tended to underrate their performance compared with scores given by staff members in a preclinical endodontic programme at Taibah University in Saudi Arabia. 36 The overestimation of their own performance by students could be explained by the "wishful thinking pattern," where adults unintentionally establish their predictions of their performance based on how they want to perform rather than on how they expect to perform. 37 Our study showed that there was agreement between both instructors' evaluations in each evaluated step and in the overall evaluation for all tooth types.…”