Dental Hygienists\u27 Contributions to Improving the Nation\u27s Oral Health Through School-Based Initiatives from 1970 Through 1999: A Historical Review

PURPOSE: The purpose of this literature review is to document the contributions dental hygienists have made over the past 3 decades to improve the nation\u27s oral health. This historical review encompasses selected literature that acknowledged dental Hygienists\u27 direct involvement in U.S. school-based or school-linked oral health programs from 1970-1999. METHODS: Five researchers independently searched MEDLINE, PubMed, and other electronic databases to identify relevant literature for the years 1970-1999. The search aimed to locate articles authored by or that documented dental Hygienists\u27 involvement as service provider in U.S. school-based oral health programs. For the purpose of this review, service provider was defined as educator, administrator, clinician, examiner, or any other unspecified service performed by a dental hygienist. RESULTS: Fifty-seven articles were retrieved, of which 36 (63%) directly linked dental hygienists to U.S. school-based activities. Twenty-seven articles specifically identified dental hygienists as service providers. Dental hygienists were listed as either primary or contributing author on 19 of these articles. CONCLUSION: The decade of the 1970s revealed very little literature documenting dental Hygienists\u27 involvement in U.S. school-based oral health programs. The 1970s, however, were instrumental in laying the foundation for service in the years that followed. As public health initiatives expanded in the 1980s, dental hygienists were identified in the largest number of papers as key personnel in the areas of education, management, service provider, and author. The decade of the 1990s yielded less literature than the 1980s, yet recognized dental Hygienists\u27 involvement in all aspects of oral health care delivery, program development and management, and authorship. The authors of this review theorize that dental hygienists were engaged in more school-based programs than reported and were involved in the authorship process more frequently than documented. Due to lack of credentials, or the omission of the words dental hygienist, RDH, or LDH, in favor of health care provider, auxiliary, or trained health care educator, it is unknown what portion of contributions made by dental hygienists remain undocumented

ADEA‐ADEE Shaping the Future of Dental Education III: Assessment in Competency‐Based Dental Education: Ways Forward

Assessment in competency-based dental education continues to be a recognized area for growth and development within dental programs around the world. At the joint American Dental Education Association (ADEA) and the Association for Dental Education in Europe (ADEE) 2019 conference, Shaping the Future of Dental Education III, the workshop on assessment was designed to continue the discussion started in 2017 at the ADEA-ADEE Shaping the Future of Dental Education II.1 The focus of the 2019 conference involved examining the potential of entrustable professional activities (EPAs) and current thinking about workplace-based assessment (WBA) within competency-based education in the 21st century. Approximately 30 years ago, George Miller wrote about the assessment of competence in medical education and challenged faculty to reach for higher levels of assessment than knowledge or skill.2 Acknowledging that no one assessment method can result in a valid assessment of competence, Miller proposed a four-level framework for assessment. The lowest level involves measuring what students know ( knows ), followed by assessment of the skill with which knowledge is applied in relevant tasks or problems ( knows how ). Next is an assessment of task performance in standardized settings ( shows how ), and finally, the highest level assesses the student\u27s performance in the unstandardized clinical workplace ( does ). The 2019 assessment workshop focused on advances in the assessment of learners in the unstandardized workplace-the highest level of Miller\u27s assessment pyramid ( does ). Research has shown that dental education has struggled to implement assessment strategies that meet this level.3 The workshop brought together individuals from around the world, with an interest in assessment in dental education, to consider how assessment in the does level, specifically EPAs and WBA, factors into competence assessment in dentistry/dental educatio

Use of an Analytical Grading Rubric for Self-Assessment: A Pilot Study for a Periodontal Oral Competency Examination in Predoctoral Dental Education

While educators agree that using self-assessment in education is valuable, a major challenge is the poor agreement often found between faculty assessment and student self-assessment. The aim of this study was to determine if use of a predefined grading rubric would improve reliability between faculty and dental student assessment on a periodontal oral competency examination. Faculty members used the grading rubric to assess students’ performance on the exam. Immediately after taking the exam, students used the same rubric to self-assess their performance on it. Data were collected from all third- and/or fourth-year students in four classes at one U.S. dental school from 2011 to 2014. Since two of the four classes took the exam in both the third and fourth years, those data were compared to determine if those students’ self-assessment skills improved over time. Statistical analyses were performed to determine agreement between the two faculty graders and between the students’ and faculty assessments on each criterion in the rubric and the overall grade. Data from the upper and lower performing quartiles of students were sub-analyzed. The results showed that faculty reliability for the overall grades was high (K=0.829) and less so for individual criteria, while student-faculty reliability was weak to moderate for both overall grades (Spearman\u27s rho=0.312) and individual criteria. Students in the upper quartile self-evaluated themselves more harshly than the faculty (p\u3c0.0001), while the lower quartile students overestimated their performance (p=0.0445) compared to faculty evaluation. No significant improvement was found in assessment over time in the students who took the exam in the third and fourth years. This study found only limited support for the hypothesis that a grading rubric used by both faculty and students would increase correspondence between faculty and student assessment and points to a need to reexamine the rubric and instructional strategies to help students improve their ability to self-assess their work

Change is here: ADEA CCI 2.0-A learning community for the advancement of dental education

On May 12, 2005, the inaugural meeting of the American Dental Education Association Commission on Change and Innovation in Dental Education (ADEA CCI) was convened. Comprised of thought leaders representative of dental education and practice, the ADEA CCI published groundbreaking white papers that effectively helped bring dental education across the threshold of the 21 st century. Twelve years later, a new ADEA CCI has been convened-ADEA CCI 2.0. The ADEA CCI 2.0 is a broad-ranging, strategically interconnected, flexible, and multifarious community of stakeholders situated within and across all facets of oral health education and practice. Whereas the first iteration of the ADEA CCI made the case for change regarding revisions of the dental curriculum and learning environment, the ADEA CCI 2.0 will focus on external domains that are having a global impact on the content and delivery of health care and health professions education and, ultimately, how health care benefits people. The principal work of the ADEA CCI 2.0 will be to create educational and implementation resources and opportunities for dental educators to contemplate, investigate, and ultimately define the future needs of their academic dental institutions in this constantly changing world