Correlation between Assignments for Professionalism of the Post-graduate Clinical Competency Evaluation and the Pre-graduate Objective Structured Clinical Achievement Test in Dental Education

Currently, there is a strong need to establish a clinical competency evaluation along with associated criteria, taking into consideration the international trend of quality assurance in higher education promoted in Europe, the United States, and Japan. This is based on the global standards proposed by the World Federation for Medical Education. Cross-sectional studies for each period have been reported regarding education at the pre-graduate clinical practical training and post-graduate clinical training levels. However, no studies on a clinical competency examination as an overall evaluation at the end of pre-graduate clinical practical training and at the end of post–graduate clinical training, or sequential evaluations on pre- and post-graduate dental education have ever been conducted. We report the results of a pilot study on the correlations within the post-graduate clinical competency evaluation as well as the results of comparative examinations between pre-graduate objective structured clinical achievement tests. The objective of this pilot study was to establish an appropriate clinical competency evaluation for professionalism in dental education. An examination was administered to dental trainees at the end of their clinical training. Analysis of the individual evaluation scores indicated a significant correlation with the post-graduate psychomotor domain. The correlation between the total score for postgraduate assignments and the post-graduate prosthetic dentistry score was high. The correlation between the individual evaluation scores for pre- and post-graduate assessment indicated no significant correlation. The present study found no correlation between the evaluations for the same item in the same subject over time before and after graduation,whereas a correlation was observed with the evaluation of the items in the psychomotor domain after postgraduate clinical training. The specific item may represent the entire assessment.