Beschreibung:
<jats:title>Abstract</jats:title><jats:sec>
<jats:title>Background</jats:title>
<jats:p>PRISM is a novel approach to support self-reflection and learning appraisal in dental students, based on a visual metaphor. The aim of this study was to evaluate whether PRISM measurments would be reproducible and sensitive to detect learning progress in undergraduate dental students in their clinical years.</jats:p>
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<jats:title>Methods</jats:title>
<jats:p>Voluntarily participating dental students were included. To evaluate reproducibility, a mixed cohort of 10 students each in 3<jats:sup>rd</jats:sup>, 4<jats:sup>th</jats:sup> and 5<jats:sup>th</jats:sup> year (total <jats:italic>n</jats:italic> = 30) was recruited and received three identically structured PRISM interviews within one week without any other teaching events. To assess perceived learning progress, 29 volunteer 3<jats:sup>rd</jats:sup> year students participated in three interviews during their clinical simulation course (beginning, middle, end). Distances between Subject and Objects was measured in millimeter; objects were classified into close or branched clusters depending on their distance from each other on the PRISM board.</jats:p>
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<jats:title>Results</jats:title>
<jats:p>Values for perceived competencies within PRISM interviews during one week were comparable between the three time points in the mixed cohort (<jats:italic>n</jats:italic> = 30; <jats:italic>p</jats:italic> > 0.05). Comparing the three subgroups (3<jats:sup>rd</jats:sup>, 4<jats:sup>th</jats:sup> and 5<jats:sup>th</jats:sup> year, each <jats:italic>n</jats:italic> = 10), PRISM indicated that 3<jats:sup>rd</jats:sup> year students perceived their competencies are significantly lower than the 4<jats:sup>th</jats:sup> and 5<jats:sup>th</jats:sup> year students (<jats:italic>p</jats:italic> < 0.01). 3<jats:sup>rd</jats:sup> year students had less often a branched cluster of objects than the other two groups (<jats:italic>p</jats:italic> < 0.05).</jats:p>
<jats:p>PRISM showed that over time, 3<jats:sup>rd</jats:sup> year students perceived a gain in their competencies in conservative dentistry and its sub-disciplines (<jats:italic>p</jats:italic> ≤ 0.01). The PRISM data indicated that by the end of the simulation course, the students appeared to show higher discrimination of their self-perceptions between sub-topics in conservative dentistry than at the start of the course (<jats:italic>p</jats:italic> = 0.01).</jats:p>
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<jats:title>Conclusion</jats:title>
<jats:p>PRISM yields a reproducible measure of individual students' learning progress. It is a promising novel approach for appraisal in dental education. Further work is needed to confirm the generalisability of the findings.</jats:p>
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