Facilitating Advanced Research Skills Beyond the Undergraduate Dental Hygiene Curricula

Abstract

Purpose: Dental hygiene educators play a key role in assisting students to make connections between research and clinical practice. A core course in research was redesigned with the goal of motivating and encouraging dental hygiene students to advance research skills beyond the undergraduate dental hygiene curricula. The purpose of this pilot study was to evaluate the redesigned course and the student outcomes as they relate to perceived barriers and motivation for future research in dental hygiene.

Methods: A 25-item, electronic survey composed of 3 sets of Likert scaled questions was sent to a convenience sample of Bachelor of Science dental hygiene students (n=18) enrolled in the Introduction to Research Methods course at New York University. The survey explored students’ perceptions of satisfaction with the learning strategies used as well as motivations and barriers toward future research. In addition to the survey, the final project, overall course grade and university end-of-course evaluations were examined to gain a comprehensive understanding of course effectiveness. Descriptive statistics were used to analyze data.

Results: Of the 18 students invited to participate, 12 completed the course evaluation survey(n=12) for a 67% response rate. Results indicated that all respondents learned about the research process and an Institutional Review Board (IRB) proposal. Most respondents indicated interest in taking additional research courses and in conducting future research. While students indicated lack of time as a barrier toward pursuing research (41.7%), they valued the need for research in clinical care. The IRB proposal project mean score was 88.3 % and the overall mean grade was 89.5%. On a Likert scale range of 1 (low) - 5 (high), the university end-of-course evaluation indicated a 4.9 overall course satisfaction.

Conclusion: Results from this pilot study reflected positive students’ attitudes towards the redesigned learning modalities and indicated future plans for conducting research upon course completion.