Fostering Dental Student Self‐Assessment of Knowledge by Confidence Scoring of Multiple‐Choice Examinations

Abstract

Creating a learning environment that fosters student acquisition of self-assessment behaviors and skills is critically important in the education and training of health professionals. Self-assessment is a vital component of competent practice and lifelong learning. This article proposes applying a version of conidence scoring of multiple-choice questions as one avenue to address this crucial educational objective for students to be able to recognize and admit what they do not know. The conidence scoring algorithm assigns one point for a correct answer, deducts fractional points for an incorrect answer, but rewards students fractional points for leaving the question unanswered in admission that they are unsure of the correct answer. The magnitude of the reward relative to the deduction is selected such that the expected gain due to random guessing, even after elimination of all but one distractor, is never greater than the reward. Curricular implementation of this conidence scoring algorithm should motivate health professions students to develop self-assessment behaviors and enable them to acquire the skills necessary to critically evaluate the extent of their current knowledge throughout their professional careers. This is a professional development competency that is emphasized in the educational standards of the Commission on Dental Accreditation (CODA)

Misconceptions amongst dental students: How can they be identified?

“…This study was motivated by the challenge of identifying misconceptions in academic dentistry programmes. Detecting and understanding misconceptions is a way to motivate students’ critical thinking by identifying their mistaken views, improving, therefore, clinical decision‐making . Our question was whether knowledge or scenario questions were better for identifying misconceptions on endodontic and dental implant assessments.…”

“…Feedback can encourage the development of self‐assessment skills, allowing students to evaluate the extent of their current knowledge and lack thereof for remedial action, that is to recognise and admit what they do not know and how to remedy deficiencies . Misconception‐based feedback may increase students’ interest in fostering critical thinking aligned with lifelong learning for their professional career development . Despite potential benefits of identifying misconceptions, they have not been broadly investigated in dental education.…”

“…Few studies have specifically examined misconceptions . Some studies in the areas of medicine, psychology and nursing have evaluated the interaction between confidence and correctness . Ibabe and Sporer observed psychology students’ theoretical assessments and showed that confidence varied as a function of question form.…”

Defining and tracking medical student self-monitoring using multiple-choice question item certainty

“…Certainty in excess of correctness risks error (not checking before acting on a decision), while too little certainty when one is correct can cause delays (checking every time before acting on a decision) [23]. Item level certainty has been used previously within assessment [23][24][25][26]. However, these studies used certainty based on a probability correct estimate, such as "there is a 70% probability that this answer is correct".…”

Undergraduate education in Brazil: the students’ curricular perspective of Dental care training

“…The creation of a learning environment that stimulates the development of behaviors and skills, especially self-evaluation, is of factual importance for the formation of health professionals. Undergraduate students should be encouraged to develop these skills from their training to enable them to be aware of the current state of their knowledge, including recognizing and acknowledging their own technical limitations 2 . For the American Dental Association (ADA), undergraduate education programs should prepare students to take responsibility for their own learning as well as to know how to apply new knowledge throughout the career as a health professional.…”