Application of objective structured clinical examination system in pediatric dental education

Objective To explore the effect of objective structured clinical examination (OSCE) in pediatric dental education. Methods Thirty 8-year-program students and sixty 5-year-program dental students from School of Stomatology, the Fourth Military Medical University were enrolled in this study. OSCE traditional written test and the students′ satisfaction questionnaires were carried out in all students. The scores of the two testing methods applied in 2 groups were compared using SPSS 18.0 software. Results The OSCE score of the five-year-program students was 61.68 ± 5.22, while that of the eight-year-program students was 58.13 ± 6.54 (t= 0.564, P= 0.579) . And the traditional test scores of the five-year-program students and eight-year-program students were 87.90 ± 4.52 and 82.56 ± 4.44 respectively (t= 2.712, P= 0.013) . There was no significant difference in OSCE scores between the two grades. The traditional test score of the five-year-program students was higher than that of the eight-year-program students, and the scores of OSCE and the traditional test were in good agreement. 71.11% of students rated higher in OSCE. Conclusions OSCE can evaluate the comprehensive quality of students objectively, truly and comprehensively, and can achieve good results in pediatric dental education. It is worthy of further promotion. Key words: Pediatric dentistry; Education, undergraduate; Objective structured clinical examination; Eight-year-program students; Five-year-program students