[Survey of what dental students feel regarding their profession (3). The relation with their self concept].

Abstract

The present survey was undertaken to find out how dental student feel about their profession and what type of the self concept they have. The subjects were 263 students in the 5th and 6th grades of dental school, Aichi-Gakuin University. The pattern of self concept as dental students or dentists was classified into three types, based on a survey of twenty statements test. These types were positive, negative and neutral. The results were as follows: 1. In both the 5th and 6th grades, statements about "present satisfaction as a dental student", in the 5th grade, "progress of university entrance examination", and in the 6th grade, "feelings about the scholastic side of dentistry", were strongly related to their type of self concept. But in both the 5th and 6th grades, there were few related statements about "the motive for entering the dental school" and "occupational choice after graduation". 2. In the result of the multivariate analysis Discriminant Analysis by the Second Class of Hayashi's Quantifying Theory, those students who were graded as "positive" had the following characteristics: (1) Regarding entrance examinations, they took only one examination for dental school when they entered. (2) When choosing dentistry as their occupation, they had not thought of it as a "self supporting occupation" or "occupation of high social standing". (3) Their present interest is learning about dentistry. (4) After their graduation from dental school, they would like to be professional dentists or, a practicing dentists or students of clinical dentistry in the hospital of the dental school.