COMPARATIVE EVALUATION OF LEARNING ORIENTATIONS OF UNDERGRADUATE MEDICAL AND DENTAL STUDENTS FROM A PRIVATE ROMANIAN UNIVERSITY

Objective: The purposes of this study was 1) to compare the learning orientations of first year medical and dental students at a private medical institution from Romania and 2) to determine if these expectations are different when compared with last year medical students. Methodology: Part 1 from the Learning and Studying Questionnaire: "What do you expect to get from the experience of higher education?" was selected to examine "Titu Maiorescu" University students' learning beliefs and orientations. Results: For the whole sample, no gender differences were observed for the learning orientations's items or any of the subscales. When age differences were evaluated, statistically significant differences were observed only for item 1 of the Learning orientations scale: "I hope the things I learn will help me to develop as a person and broaden my horizons" (P<0.05). First year medical students scored statistically significantly higher than first year dental students on Lack of purpose subscale and lower on question regarding Social and personal reasons subscale: "I hope the whole experience here will make me more independent and self-confident". Last year medical students scored statistically significantly higher than first year medical students on the Item 5: "I hope the whole experience here will make me more independent and self-confident" and on the Social and personal reasons subscale (P<0.05). Conclusion: It is important for teachers from higher education to understand medical students' perceptions and expectations of medicine and to further investigate the role of the medical/dental curriculum in the conflict between these perceptions and expectations and the offer of the educational institution.