Publication Type
Journal Article
Version
acceptedVersion
Publication Date
11-2010
Abstract
Dental education in Europe faces enormous challenges. One deals with the admission to dental school. Although admission procedures vary considerably across Europe, a characteristic of some systems is that the same procedure is used across students who will ultimately pursue different majors (medical or dental). This is based on the assumptions that there is no significant difference in these students' scores and that the requirements for medicine and dentistry are equal. This study examines these assumptions in the admission exam 'Medical and Dental Studies' in Flanders. Students who pass may choose whether they start medical or dental education. Over an 8-year period (2000-2007), admission exam scores of students starting medicine (n = 4492) were compared to those of students starting dentistry (n = 547). Second, the validity of this exam is examined for both medical and dental education. It was found that students starting dentistry had a significantly lower total score on the admission exam than students starting medicine. Differences were especially striking for the cognitive part of the admission exam. For both medical and dental students, the admission exam score was a valid predictor of academic grades in the first 3 years, although correlations were lower for dental education. These results have implications for admission procedures in countries where the same system is used for both majors. The findings that students who have a lower score choose dental education and that the validity of the exam is slightly lower for dentistry, raise questions about using the same admission exam for two obviously different majors.
Keywords
Admission, selection, medical and dental students
Discipline
Dentistry | Organizational Behavior and Theory
Research Areas
Organisational Behaviour and Human Resources
Publication
European Journal of Dental Education
Volume
14
Issue
4
First Page
215
Last Page
220
ISSN
1396-5883
Identifier
10.1111/j.1600-0579.2009.00613.x
Publisher
Wiley: 12 months
Citation
BUYSE, Tine; LIEVENS, Filip; and MARTENS, L..
Admission systems to dental school in Europe: A closer look at Flanders. (2010). European Journal of Dental Education. 14, (4), 215-220.
Available at: https://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/lkcsb_research/5596
Copyright Owner and License
Authors
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 International License.
Additional URL
https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1600-0579.2009.00613.x