Abstract:

The evaluation of the knowledge and the abilities which are necessary on students for an efficient labor performance before and after graduation may provide a realistic information of the efficacy of the educational system on which are enrolled in. In Mexico, the most used method to evaluate the knowledge and skills that the students may have before and after graduation studies is the General Test for the Graduated Students (EGEL). In dentistry EGEL-O test is an important evaluation tool which is useful not only for dentistry faculties but also for the companies that offers employment for dentistry graduated students. The principal advantages of EGEL-O test are to evaluate the performance of dentistry students in specific curricular categories and to compare the results between different dentistry faculties. Also EGEL test is used as a tool, on which students can obtain the grade as dentists, supports the development and planning on current and future curriculum programs of dentistry faculties. Also, gives sensible information to the educational structures by means of the knowledge of the academic status of the students. EGEL-O test also gives information about dental community necessities and its relation to the academic programs. The structure of the EGEL-O test has four main evaluation parts such as: assessment of the patient general health status, the establishment of a diagnosis, prognosis and treatment plan, the recovery of the health of the stomatognathic system and finally the fourth part is related to the promotion of the oral health and the prevention of the pathologies of the stomatognathic system. In this work we compared the mean national EGEL-O test record with the mean record of the Faculty of Dentistry of the Universidad Michoacana de San Nicolás de Hidalgo (FO-UMSNH) in order to know the actual status of FO-UMSNH related to the mexican national records.

In this work, we selected the total number of graduated dentistry students of the FO-UMSNH which requested the EGEL-O test on 2010. The test was applied for eight hours divided in two sessions the same day of the test. To compare the academic status of the FO-UMSNH related to the national record a statistical analysis from the national record was obtained and compared. To identify any statistical difference between the results of groups, the exact test of Fisher was used.

The results of this study showed that there were not statistically significant differences between the scores obtained from the dentistry students of FO-UMSNH and the score of the national record. The national data scores showed that the highest number of students which requested and obtained a satisfactory/excellent score were from the FO-UMSNH in respect with other universities. On the other part EGEL-O test showed that the students of FO-UMSNH had the highest score as satisfactory for the correct performance to evaluate the assessment of the patient related to general health status (64,8%) where the lowest score was for the ability of the students to promote the oral health and the prevention of the pathologies of the stomatognathic system (0,0%).

Our results suggest that EGEL-O test is an efficient tool which gives not only information about the level of knowledge and academic abilities of graduated dentistry students and the efficacy of the educational system but also identifies if the students count on the knowledge and abilities in the professional exercise to be employed.

Keywords:

Evaluation tools, dentistry students.