Pilot study to evaluate a novel measure of self-perceived competencies among dental students

BACKGROUND: PRISM is a novel approach to support self-reflection and learning appraisal in dental students, based on a visual metaphor. The aim of this study was to evaluate whether PRISM measurments would be reproducible and sensitive to detect learning progress in undergraduate dental students in their clinical years. METHODS: Voluntarily participating dental students were included. To evaluate reproducibility, a mixed cohort of 10 students each in 3(rd), 4(th) and 5(th) year (total n = 30) was recruited and received three identically structured PRISM interviews within one week without any other teaching events. To assess perceived learning progress, 29 volunteer 3(rd) year students participated in three interviews during their clinical simulation course (beginning, middle, end). Distances between Subject and Objects was measured in millimeter; objects were classified into close or branched clusters depending on their distance from each other on the PRISM board. RESULTS: Values for perceived competencies within PRISM interviews during one week were comparable between the three time points in the mixed cohort (n = 30; p > 0.05). Comparing the three subgroups (3(rd), 4(th) and 5(th) year, each n = 10), PRISM indicated that 3(rd) year students perceived their competencies are significantly lower than the 4(th) and 5(th) year students (p < 0.01). 3(rd) year students had less often a branched cluster of objects than the other two groups (p < 0.05). PRISM showed that over time, 3(rd) year students perceived a gain in their competencies in conservative dentistry and its sub-disciplines (p ≤ 0.01). The PRISM data indicated that by the end of the simulation course, the students appeared to show higher discrimination of their self-perceptions between sub-topics in conservative dentistry than at the start of the course (p = 0.01). CONCLUSION: PRISM yields a reproducible measure of individual students' learning progress. It is a promising novel approach for appraisal in dental education. Further work is needed to confirm the generalisability of the findings. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s12909-022-03663-6.