Evaluating dental student self‐assessment across preclinical anatomy waxing and operative exercises

Abstract Purpose/objective A career in healthcare is built on the foundations of continuous self‐reflection and self‐assessment. Previous studies have solely compared student self‐assessment to faculty grades in a single discipline. The objective of this study was to investigate whether associations of a student's self‐assessment skills exist across multiple disciplines in the predoctoral setting. Methods Sixty‐five students from two class years at the Harvard School of Dental Medicine completed preclinical competency exams in dental anatomy waxing and operative dentistry. The difference between the student's self‐assessment score and average faculty grade for each exercise was calculated as the student‒faculty (S‐F) gap, which served as a proxy to determine how students evaluate their work. Regression analysis was performed to assess associations between wax‐up and preclinical operative S‐F gaps. Results Mean S‐F gaps for waxing and preclinical operative procedures were positive (5.7 ± 6.1 and 7.6 ± 6.7, respectively). Additionally, students in the lower quartile tended to overestimate performance to a greater degree than their peers in the upper quartile. Furthermore, the waxing S‐F gaps were positively associated with S‐F gaps of each operative procedure, particularly with the combined operative exercise S‐F gaps, where a statistically significant association was seen (coefficient = 0.28; p = 0.04). Conclusion(s) Previously, we identified a negative correlation between students' self‐assessment skills (S‐F gaps) and their preclinical performance. In this study, we further demonstrated an association of S‐F gaps in two fundamental exercises: wax‐up and operative dentistry. This underscores the roles of S‐F gaps as possible indicators of students’ preclinical and clinical performance, and it holds potential to become a widely standardized and applicable calculation that may help evaluate the effectiveness of the dental curricula and optimize student learning.