A Comparison of Dental Students' Self-Assessment and Instructors' Assessment in Competency Examinations in a Preclinical Operative Dentistry Course.

Objective: Student self-assessment is a skill that is taught, assessed, and attained in education for lifelong learning. In dental education, developing self-assessment is essential during the early stages of psychomotor learning. This study compared dental students' self-assessments and instructors' assessments in competency examinations and evaluated the progress and potential predictors of self-assessment performance, including achievement level and gender, in a Preclinical Operative Dentistry course.

Methods: The preclinical operative dentistry assessment and self-assessment records by instructors and students, respectively, were collected retrospectively from intra-semester and final examination assessment rubrics. The instructors' scoring agreement level was measured using inter-rater reliability and intra-class correlations (ICCs). Students' self-assessment data were compared with instructors' assessment data, and agreement was tested using inter-rater reliability estimates. The significance level was set at 0.05.

Results: Instructors were calibrated based on significant agreement (p < 0.001) between full-time and part-time instructors (ICCs = 0.888 and 0.859, respectively). A significant difference (p < 0.001) was found between instructors' and students' mean scores. Students' gender was significantly associated with their evaluation of performance in the intra-semester examination (p = 0.048). Most male students (58%) overestimated their performance, while the majority (44%) of female students tend to evaluate their performance accurately. There was no significant difference in the scoring of instructors and high achievers classified in the "excellent" category (p = 0.392).

Conclusion: In preclinical operative dentistry education, students' ability to accurately self-assess the quality of their work varies, and may be predicted by gender and achievement level. Students who underestimate their performance in self-assessment tend not to show improvement in their actual performance.