METHODS: An iterative e-Delphi technique was employed as the method for gathering consensus on a range of topics found pertinent to affect orthodontic teaching and learning established through literature review. A total of ten expert panellists were recruited through a targeted invitation to the orthodontists from Malaysian public universities offering undergraduate dental education. The e-Delphi comprised of three rounds of anonymous e-survey. The consensus was sought for two open-ended and two closed-ended questions.
RESULTS: The response rates for all the three rounds were 100 per cent. The total number of questions responded by the participants in all the three rounds was forty-four. Round one achieved consensus on two closed-ended questions. Round two achieved a consensus on twenty-eight out of thirty-four (82.35%) questions with round three achieving a consensus on four out of six (66.66%) questions. A 70% consensus was considered as the minimum level of agreement for all the rounds. In total, consensus and agreement were achieved on two closed-ended questions and twenty-nine items from the open-ended questions.
CONCLUSION: The study was able to identify a range of issues affecting undergraduate orthodontic education with a good level of consensus using the e-Delphi technique highlighting the need for curriculum refinement. The study has, in addition, proposed tangible methods to enable such a change.
DESIGN: Cross-sectional.
METHODS: Study was conducted among Iranian medical sciences students from April to May 2020. A total of 660 students participated in the online self-administrated questionnaire. Construct validity, convergent and divergent validity, and reliability of P-BMPN were evaluated.
RESULTS: The Exploratory factor analysis showed that the Persian version of the BMPN has 17 items with four factors: dissatisfaction, autonomy Satisfaction, relatedness satisfaction and competence satisfaction that explained 40.17% of the total variance. Based on confirmatory factor analysis, all goodness-of-fit indices confirmed the model fit.
CONCLUSION: These results suggest that the Persian version of the BMPN is a reliable and valid measure to assess satisfaction and dissatisfaction of the psychological needs in Iranian university students.
Results: Of the 170 participants, 60% were female and 40% were male. Participants ranged in age from twenty-four to twenty-seven years, with an average age of twenty-four years. There was a relationship between personality scores obtained for the students and their subsequent academic performance. The broad conscientiousness, competence, achievement, and dutifulness predicted academic and clinical success. The prediction accuracy of conscientiousness was improved by the inclusion of dutifulness, self-discipline, and deliberation.
Conclusion: This study confirms that the students' personality profile is a substantial predictor of academic performance and likely to help select future intakes of students, although a prospective study would be required for a definite answer to this question.
METHODS: Final-year dental undergraduate students from six dental public universities in Malaysia were invited to participate in an online study using a validated Dental Undergraduates Preparedness Assessment Scale DU-PAS.
RESULTS: In total, about 245 students responded to the online questionnaire yielding a response rate of 83.05%. The age range of the respondents was 23-29 years with a mean age of 24.36 (SD 0.797). The total score obtained by the respondents was ranged from 48 to 100 with a mean score of 79.56 (SD 13.495). Weaknesses were reported in several clinical skills, cognitive and behavioural attributes.
CONCLUSIONS: The preparedness of undergraduate students at six dental institutions in Malaysia was comparable to students from developed countries. The dental undergraduate preparedness assessment scale is a useful tool, and dental institutions may be used for self-assessment as well as to obtain feedback from the supervisors.
Methods: A cross-sectional study was conducted amongst university students from a Malaysian's public university. A total of 228 students responded to a self-administered questionnaire consisting of items evaluating knowledge and practices of osteoporosis.
RESULTS: The students showed a moderate level of osteoporosis awareness with a score of 63.3%. Male subjects had higher awareness scores of osteoporosis complications compared to female subjects (p= 0.010). Malay (p= 0.002) and Chinese (p= 0.005) had higher levels of osteoporosis awareness compared to Indian students. Coffee and alcohol intakes were significantly different between the sexes (p= 0.013) and the ethnic groups (p= 0.029). Most of the subjects in our study were minimally active (43.9%).
CONCLUSIONS: The students had a reasonable levels of knowledge about osteoporosis, but their health activities to avoid osteoporosis were insufficient. This illustrates the need for educational programmes to improve students' knowledge and awareness for successful osteoporosis prevention.
METHOD: The study used a variety of methods, which involved an on-line survey on the influences of social isolation using a non-probability sampling. More specifically, two techniques were used, namely a convenience sampling (i.e. involving members of the academic community, which are easy to reach by the study team), supported by a snow ball sampling (recruiting respondents among acquaintances of the participants). A total of 711 questionnaires from 41 countries were received. Descriptive statistics were deployed to analyse trends and to identify socio-demographic differences. Inferential statistics were used to assess significant differences among the geographical regions, work areas and other socio-demographic factors related to impacts of social isolation of university staff and students.
RESULTS: The study reveals that 90% of the respondents have been affected by the shutdown and unable to perform normal work or studies at their institution for between 1 week to 2 months. While 70% of the respondents perceive negative impacts of COVID 19 on their work or studies, more than 60% of them value the additional time that they have had indoors with families and others. .
CONCLUSIONS: While the majority of the respondents agree that they suffered from the lack of social interaction and communication during the social distancing/isolation, there were significant differences in the reactions to the lockdowns between academic staff and students. There are also differences in the degree of influence of some of the problems, when compared across geographical regions. In addition to policy actions that may be deployed, further research on innovative methods of teaching and communication with students is needed in order to allow staff and students to better cope with social isolation in cases of new or recurring pandemics.