Assessment of evidence-based dentistry (EBD) knowledge and behaviour is hampered by lack of explicit competency criteria. This void impedes instructional design and assessment of student growth during the educational process.
Knowledge and cognitive domains supporting educational objectives in a pre-doctoral dental programme were identified for each level of the EBD five-step process. We articulated educational objectives with behavioural expectations for each level of skill acquisition at each step of the EBD process. Outcome evaluation criteria identify students' progressive level of skill acquisition from novice to expert.
The educational objectives, type of knowledge, and nature of the cognitive process supporting these objectives are presented for each step of the EBD process. For example, educational objectives of the "Ask" step include (i) to construct a question from the patient presentation and knowledge limitations that addresses the clinical problem and (ii) to articulate the Problem, Intervention/Exposure, Comparison, Outcome (PICO) components. Achievement of these objectives requires both factual information regarding the PICO format and the cognitive process of understanding. Educational outcome criteria consistent with a competent clinician include clear articulation of the PICO with identifiable pieces that relate to the clinical situation.
Assessment strategies for progression towards EBD competency are limited due to the complexity associated with evaluating EBD knowledge and behaviours. To evaluate performance, the EBD academic community must define competency expectations for entry into unsupervised general dental practice.
This framework offers measurable outcome evaluation criteria to initiate a conversation with academic peers regarding current gaps in EBD assessment.
This research output has an Altmetric Attention Score of 2. This is our high-level measure of the quality and quantity of online attention that it has received. This Attention Score, as well as the ranking and number of research outputs shown below, was calculated when the research output was last mentioned on 29 April 2017.
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#18,312,781
of 27,387,710 outputs
Outputs from European Journal of Dental Education
#205
of 426 outputs
Outputs of similar age
#206,734
of 330,016 outputs
Outputs of similar age from European Journal of Dental Education
#4
of 10 outputs
Altmetric has tracked 27,387,710 research outputs across all sources so far. This one is in the 31st percentile – i.e., 31% of other outputs scored the same or lower than it.
So far Altmetric has tracked 426 research outputs from this source. They receive a mean Attention Score of 2.4. This one has gotten more attention than average, scoring higher than 50% of its peers.
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