Increase in dental hygienists’ competency and self-directed capacity after capstone-designed class on community dental hygiene

Objectives: This study aimed to verify the effect on students’ competency and self-directed capacity after a capstone-designed teaching method with community dental hygiene class. Methods: The study participants were 34 dental hygiene students taking a 4-year community dental hygiene course at a university located in City C. The research tool consisted of 52 questions on major competency and 20 questions on self-directed capacity. Results: After the capstone design class, overall dental hygienists’ competency increased (p<0.05), and competencies of clinical dental hygiene and community health promotion showed a high increase (p<0.001). As a result of analyzing the increase in dental hygienists’ competency according to self-directed learning ability, the group with low self-directed capacity showed high improvement in clinical dental hygiene competency and community oral health promotion competency. Conclusions: This study confirmed that the capstone-designed community dental hygiene class improved students’ competency and self-directed capacity, and suggests that it is an excellent teaching method for training competencies required for future society.