Comprehensive assessment of the formation of practical skills among dental students while studying the discipline of Periodontology (Part 1)

Objective. Development and approbation of an integral index of the complexity of practical skills in the study of the discipline of periodontology based on objective expert assessments and subjective self-assessment of students, as well as the stratification of skills by the level of difficulty. Material and methods. 151 students took part in the study. The assessment of the development of 22 clinical and pedagogically justified practical skills by 5-year students, covering the key sections of periodontology, was carried out. The performance of each student’s practical skills was evaluated by expert teachers using a special standardized checklist based on the principles of the Objective Structured Clinical Examination (OSCE) using a 5-point scale. An integral complexity index (ICI) was calculated, combining objective and subjective data. Results. The average expert ratings of the performance of the acquired skills ranged from 3.3 to 4.5 points (out of 5), while the average self-ratings of the difficulty of performing the same skills by students ranged from 3.0 to 4.5 points (where 5 means “very difficult”). The calculated indices of skill difficulty ranged from 0.71 to 0.88, which reflects a more pronounced differentiation in the level of difficulty of practical manipulations. Skills are stratified by IC: simple (IC ≤0.72), medium complexity (0.73—0.80), and complex (IC ≥0.81). Conclusion. The proposed complexity index allows for the optimization of training programs, focusing on the most difficult manipulations.