Effects of anxiety on dental students' noncognitive performance in their first objective structured clinical examination

Abstract

Patient-dentist discourse is a core nonoperational competency in dental education. The skills of querying patients and responding to questions are noncognitive attributes, and their evaluation by the standardized patient objective structured clinical examination (OSCE) is particularly necessary. However, it is not clear whether students' test anxiety affects these attributes. This study aims to examine the relationship between dental students' state-trait anxiety, noncognitive performance, and examination results during their first OSCE. A single dental school cohort (n = 226) of 5 year students attending their first clinical examination from 2014 to 2017 was studied. Participants completed the Chinese Mandarin Version State-Trait Anxiety Inventory Y form before taking the OSCE. The difference between state and trait anxiety levels was compared by paired t test. Gender differences and the effect of age group in these anxiety levels were analyzed using multivariate analysis of variance. Moreover, gender, age group, state anxiety, and trait anxiety scores were compared with the OSCE items of noncognitive performance using a chi-square test. Students showed significantly higher state anxiety than trait anxiety levels; moreover, women showed significantly higher state anxiety than men. Furthermore, gender, age group, state anxiety, and trait anxiety had no association with the noncognitive performance examination results. Most participants showed moderate state and trait anxiety levels during their first OSCE. Further, the state-trait anxiety had no significant effect on their noncognitive performance. However, 26.5% of participants did not pass the examination; therefore, dental educators should increase communication skill training courses during clerkship training to improve students' noncognitive attributes.

The effect of anxiety on nicotine dependence among university students during the COVID‐19 pandemic

“…Yakar et al 14 reported that female medical students suffered from anxiety more than males during the COVID‐19 pandemic. Wu et al 26 and Zhao et al 27 also found that Chinese female university students experienced more anxiety than males during the COVID‐19 pandemic. Women are more emotional than men due to physiological differences between men and women, such as genetic sensitivity, hormone, and cortisol levels.…”

Relationships between Nursing Students’ Skill Mastery, Test Anxiety, Self-Efficacy, and Facial Expressions: A Preliminary Observational Study

“…A recent study of 35 countries, that were part of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, found that the factors that significantly affected academic performance were enjoyment, motivation, test anxiety, and self-efficacy [ 2 ]. Among these factors, it is widely recognised that the student’s levels of anxiety and self-efficacy when taking a skills test affects their skill mastery [ 3 , 4 ]. Nursing students may have higher levels of anxiety than students in other fields [ 5 ].…”

Objective structured clinical examination: Do first-year nursing students perceive it to be stressful?

“…The literature suggests that OSCE is associated with high levels of stress and anxiety (Wadi et al 2022 :54; Wu et al 2020 :854). In this study, although the number of female students was considerably higher than male students, there were no significant gender differences in terms of perceived stress, perceived factors causing stress and perceived incidence of stress.…”