Preliminary Assessment of Critical Thinking Among Fifth-Year Dental Students Using Temporomandibular Disorder Questions: A Cross-Sectional Study.

BACKGROUND

Educational stress in clinical environments can negatively influence students' academic performance. This might also hamper students' critical clinical reasoning. A stressful environment can impair one's ability to reflect and make sound judgments. Some authors believe that clinical reasoning requires greater educational and clinical exposure. Problem-based learning (PBL) and case-based learning (CBL) through realistic clinical cases help students to engage in higher-order thinking.

METHODS

Fifth-year dental students in a single dental school were asked at the end of an oral surgery lecture on temporomandibular disorder (TMD) to write and answer their own question(s) on any topic within the lecture. After receiving the answers, the questions were categorized according to the following categories: 1) number of questions; 2) type of question (enumeration vs short answer); and 3) relevance of the provided questions. The relevance of the questions was assessed and agreed upon by the 1st and 3rd authors. Topic relevance was considered based on the diagnostic, clinical, radiographic, and surgical values of the given question.

RESULTS

Out of seventy-nine students who agreed to participate in this study, the majority were female (60, 75.9%). There were 19 (24.1%) male participants. No significant relationship (P = 0.509) was found between sex and the importance of the question (Chi-Square Test). In addition, the Chi-Square Test did not show a significant relationship (P = 0.678) between the number of questions and the importance of the questions. The chi-square Test showed a highly significant relationship (P < 0.001) between the importance of the question and the type of answer.

CONCLUSION

Associations were observed between the judged relevance of student-generated questions and their question and answer characteristics. These findings may provide preliminary insight into how students prioritize clinically relevant information. However, student-generated questions should be considered an exploratory proxy rather than a direct measure of critical thinking.