Design and Validation of a Basic Dental Psychomotor Skills Test for Novice Dental Students

The aim of this study was to design and validate the Dental Psychomotor Skills (DePS) test as an instrument to assess dental students' psychomotor skills and to help educators adapt their academic practices to students' needs. The DePS test was created considering three of the main skills needed for dental study and practice. The dimensions measured in the test were Indirect Vision (IV) with 24 items, Instructions Follow-Up (FI) with 17 items, and Accuracy (A) with six items; each item was assessed at two stations. Scores were obtained with detailed rubrics, assessed by the same evaluator at each station. A total of 237 first-year dental students, in four cohorts from 2012 to 2015, and 16 dental faculty instructors were evaluated. The construct validity of the instrument was supported by the rigorous build of ten stages, and the discriminative validity was supported by the comparison of the student and faculty results. The overall mean scores were 245.5 +/- 2.09 in the student group and 280.6 +/- 4.217 in the faculty group (difference: 35.15 +/- 7.00; p<0.001). Internal consistency was assessed by analyzing responses for each dimension using Cronbach's alpha, a statistical measure of reliability. Overall, Cronbach's alpha was 0.909 for dental students and 0.773 for faculty instructors. These results suggest that the DePS test is a valid test that could be used as a reliable basic skill tool at the beginning of the dental program to assess the abilities of novice dental students, to recognize student qualities, and to identify individuals requiring additional training.