Assessment by dynamic context, a geriatric dentistry experience

Abstract

When odontogeriatrics was installed in the undergraduate curriculum, under the Department of Conservative Dentistry of the Faculty of Dentistry, University of Chile, a change was implemented in the traditional model of clinical education, abandoning the numerical requirements of procedures requested from students for each discipline, to approval by high integrals. To achieve this objective, the didactics based on scientific evidence were designed, applied to the contexts. For prosthetic design, 4 1-hour classes were assigned. In them, 11 conditioning clinical characteristics of the prosthetic design were systematized in cases of the students. In the third summative evaluation, and to emphasize the variability of the clinic, 2 dynamic context questions were designed. They were asked to propose a prosthetic design for a partial dentition scheme and then to declare five clinical characteristics that prevented its execution, and based on the clinical characteristics indicated, to carry out a second prosthetic design. The students only applied 3 clinical characteristics to their designs: retentive rim n = 64 (81%), marginal insertion brace n = 71 (90%) and abutment tooth mobility n = 1 (1%). All students n = 79 (100%) answered one clinical characteristic, n = 73 (92%) justified two and only 1 student n = 1 (1%) justified with 3 clinical characteristics. Only 9 students n = (11%) drew the second design. The marks were compared with previous evaluations, observing a drastic drop in them. Non-compulsory class attendance and informal learning strategies may in part justify these results.