THE INFLUENCE OF SELF-EVALUATION IN CLINICAL PRACTICE

Objective: To study whether studentself-evaluation would benefit their outcome in clinical practice, by measuring their level of achievement in a set of pre-selected clinical competencies.
Material and methods: 60 students belonging to the fourth-year dental course during their participation in the subject Periodontology were randomly assigned to an experimental group (group E-21 students) or to a control group (group C – 39 students). All students received the same handbook of practices, the same preclinical seminars clinical skills practice before entering the clinic and having contact with patients. The clinical skills practices were always conducted under the supervision of an assistant professor, which not only supervised the students' work but also conducted feedback to improve student's clinical skills. Students in Group E undertook self-evaluation at three different times during the course: at the beginning after participating in the first Objective Structured Clinical Exam (OSCE), in the middle of the semester and after carrying out the final OSCE. Student’s in-group C only did self-evaluationat the final OSCE.
Results: After the first self-evaluation, the scores from the student’s in-group E were different from the real scores obtained by the teachers.These scores were higher in ergonomics, work positions and scaling and root planning; being these differences statistically significant (P <0.01). In contrast, the self-evaluation score in probing was similarto the real score. In the final OSCE of group E there were no statistically significant differences between the scores from self-evaluation and the real scores obtained (P> 0.05). When comparing the scores of self-evaluation between group E and group C at the end of the semester, there were no statistically significant differences in any of the three items measured (P> 0.05). Moreover, there were no statistically significant differences between the real scores obtained in-group E when compared to group C (P> 0.05).
Conclusion: The data from this study suggest that student self-evaluation has no effect on the achievement of clinical competencies if there is an appropriated feedback from the teacher.