A Qualitative Exploration of Existing Reflective Practices Used by Undergraduate Dental Students in Paediatric Dentistry
Abstract
:1. Introduction
2. Materials and Methods
2.1. Context and Participant Recruitment
2.2. Data Collection
2.3. Data Analysis
3. Results
- Understanding of Reflection
- Preparation for Reflection
- Importance of Learning Through Experience
- Suggestions for Development
3.1. Understanding of Reflection
I write something first about what I think has happened, and, bits that I think had gone well, bits that have gone badly or things, usually I like to pick out something which was…where it’s something new to me, and which I just learnt, so, because it’ll help me remember better, and then the tutor then looks at it, and then gives me feedback based on my reflections(Participant 2, student)
I think that reflection is pretty much just us writing in our clinic books… I find it quite useful to look back sometimes … we don’t have ‘paeds’ very often so I look before my next rotation if I have the book … generally, I just try and write something I learned in the session to trigger my memory next time(Participant 3, student)
Reflect on what we’ve done on clinic and reflect on how you feel like it’s gone with the patient … the treatment, what you actually did and if that was any good(Participant 5, student)
So I suppose it’s looking at what you’ve done on the clinic, your actions and clinical work and sort of seeing how you could have, what you did well, what you didn’t do so well and sort of trying to act on what you didn’t do so well to make it better for next time, so it’s more about trying to improve future clinical practice(Participant 6, student)
So, you can look back and look at everything that went well and that didn’t so go well, and how you go on from that … also, so not just improve on the stuff that went wrong but keep on doing things right(Participant 7, student)
Just about how you…when you’ve done a job … and then it’s, why did it go well, what have I done different…so reflection to me is just checking yourself, looking back at what you’ve done, trying to put into place things that you can follow to make it better next time(Participant 3, staff)
Sometimes … you might beat yourself (up) or just putting yourself down and sometimes, reflection can be positive as well, almost like a mini counselling session(Participant 1, student)
I think that to somehow track how your confidence grows … be able to get a better overall picture … because I know…everyone knows that we’re probably nervous. (Laughter) Yeah, I think it might be helpful as well to the tutors that may look at it afterwards and see that, read, ‘Oh, I was really worried about that’ and then they could either silence those worries and say, ‘Well, you know, you did okay,’ or, ‘Actually, well, if you do it like that next time,’ and you might not feel so worried or whatever(Participant 5, student)
…it depends which tutor you have. Sometimes, they just focus on what you’ve done badly, and I think a lot of people, myself included, find that quite off-putting … you shouldn’t take it as a personal attack but it almost is because it’s nice to begin with a positive and have the bit that you need to improve on and then end with a positive as well because I think people engage with a bit more than if you’re just told, “Right, so you didn’t do this well,” and that’s it(Participant 6, staff)
3.2. Preparation for Reflection
It’s just something you develop whilst you’re on clinic work, whether it be actually treating the patient or seeing my peers work on patients and then seeing how they discuss the performance with the tutor … it’s just sort of something you pick up. In terms of formal teaching, I don’t recall having marks on it(Participant 4, student)
… we’re not taught how deep to go with it. So I think with myself I go quite, I try and be quite detailed with it because it’s only the more detail we put in, the more I can identify what I’ve done wrong but I think a lot of people don’t really take it very seriously or they don’t go that much in detail so some people I’d seen on clinics say I’ll be better at this next time but they haven’t said how they need to be better at it. And I think that a lot of people just go very superficially into it(Participant 6, student)
I feel like I make it up as I go along. I thought like (laughter) you know, when you’re at school and it’s like two stars and a wish. I feel like (laughter) it’s a little bit ambiguous, and we just…I kind of just write anything down.(Participant 2, student)
A lot of the time … I’ve written, “observed child communication and assisted full assessment and learned about hypomineralised molars and the appearance of them”. I suppose that is an observation rather than a reflection. And I know that that’s something I’m guilty of doing in all of my logbooks…(Participant 6, student)
I think there is confusion among tutors and the students about what exactly you’re meant to put in there, and what the tutors- what feedback the tutor’s meant to give you as well(Participant 2, student)
…you feel like you have to get something down in order to leave the clinic, and so, when you haven’t had, you know, that maybe a session wasn’t as interesting or it’s something that you’ve already done before, the fact that you have to, you know, it’s compulsory to reflect in order to leave, you just think, ‘Oh, okay. I don’t really have anything to say…’ reflection for me, it’s more of a…I don’t know, maybe I’m being too philosophical, but it’s more of a personal thing. And so, yeah, sometimes, I don’t feel like reflecting(Participant 1, student)
It depends on how rushed they all feel because they will leave it to the last, oh, I put it on the book, can you sign all these papers, and then it’s all stressful, …you don’t have time to talk to them, you don’t have time, you just- they write their reflection, you write yours, you’re there for like a 2-min chat, it’s not…that’s not ideal I don’t think, … so you just haven’t got time. It’d be nice to have plenty of time to do it(Participant 3, staff)
Sometimes things happen during the sessions that you maybe need to really brought up that … think about this, so I think there’s lines that they need—it’s important that if something important happens in that session that really needed to be given feedback on(Participant 2, staff)
… you got a queue of people waiting to get their books signed and waiting to speak to the tutor …and, you know, how you felt if you’re feeling a bit emotional or upset, you may not feel like it’s a safe environment to disclose those things … your peers who, you know, are behind, you don’t want them to know how you’re feeling or see that you’re upset or bothered by things(Participant 1, student)
They probably do socially modify what they write if I’m standing over them. But they tend to just write it themselves, and they write very grey stuff. I don’t think they write enough for anybody to judge them on(Participant 1, staff)
… because I know tutors, at the end of the day, they just want you to improve; they’re not going to criticise you for being negative or picking up things that you can improve on. So, I don’t really think it would make a difference (having a safer space)(Participant 4, student)
3.3. Importance of Learning through Experience
I think it helps you with being able to provide better care for your patients. So, as I said before, areas that you need to improve on can be highlighted through your reflection if you do it properly. And that’s only going to advantage all the patients and the people that you interact with. And, you know, it could highlight that you need to do more CPD or go on courses …(Participant 1, student)
We have a standard professionally that we need to fulfil when treating all of our patients. So, once you have a standard in mind, that is really valuable to see where you measure up against it. Whether you’re just passing it or you need to work on something or everything’s going well, it’s always important to make sure that the patient gets that standard of care and you’re trying your best to provide it(Participant 4, student)
Because we need to improve. I think you need to reflect, look at what actually you could have done better and what did go well? And so, you can sort of build up on that(Participant 5, student)
I think a lot of people think that the review and assessment bits and reflection is all about just making yourself better but people I don’t think realise that it’s actual requirement of the GDC through professional development(Participant 6, student)
…You could think that you’ve done an amazing job. But really, the tutor hasn’t really looked at it, you know, doesn’t have anything else to say other than, ‘Oh yeah, good.’ And so, the opportunity to reflect on a deeper level isn’t always there I’d say, because, you know, your knowledge on what’s good and what’s bad as a student isn’t always, you know, as good as it could be obviously(Participant 1, student)
I’ll talk about how I think it is then, but then often the tutor will be able to point things out to me, and then I guess it’s a nice feedback they give me as well, it gives me a better understanding of what I’ve done, yeah(Participant 2, student)
I think a lot of the time, people find it difficult to identify what they have done wrong in the session so they need to have some element of peer review. So maybe that partner would sit with them and talk to them honestly about what they think they didn’t do so well as well what I did well …(Participant 6, student)
3.4. Suggestions for Development
For me, maybe just having maybe just a little bit of guidance or like a point on, okay, something, what went well, what didn’t go well. Just something like that, just something to hint you to think a little bit more deeply, and just to make it a bit more something that is sit down, and…yeah, just think about it a bit more instead of just a gap. To keep the gap as well just for any other random comments, but more of a guided reflection perhaps(Participant 1, student)
I think a breakdown of the reflection box … what went well, what didn’t go well, what did you learn today that forces you to write something. But I like the idea of, well, potential idea of not having to do it every session, doing it so many times a session. Because then, it’s not like a forced, ‘Well, I’ve got to write something because,’ you know. So, I think that would take that away. And actually, then, you’d maybe have, I don’t know, like for a four-week rotation, have two really good things you’ve actually found really interesting…(Participant 5, student)
I suppose I write in the reflections what I need to, what things I’ve learnt about and what things I need to go away and learn about myself and I suppose that greater awareness of what knowledge you’re lacking so that you can work on it. It does improve your work a bit more. But I think, the reflections, if we’re told how to properly reflect could be more valuable than they are at the moment(Participant 6, student)
Is it compulsory to reflect on every clinic? Maybe just making it, you know, an optional thing that I have a reflection. You know, the tutor can always give comments… Do you want to reflect on this procedure or…? Yeah, maybe making it an optional thing(Participant 1, student)
One thing that would be more useful with the peers, is that peers see you all the time. Whereas the staff members, is looking after two to four units at a time. So, I think the peer review would be more valuable because they’ve seen you from when you’ve brought the patient in to when you’ve sent them out(Participant 6, student)
So, I don’t know if you’ve heard of these apps. So, the applications where you just basically track what you eat during the day… on the e-portfolio, I can see the number of treatments, professionalism, patient management, in a similar way like in a kind of a chart representation. So, something like this in terms of the layout on the e-portfolio like, yeah, the professionalism, average management; if that could be translated into something that we could access really quickly like an app, that might be another option(Participant 1, student)
As more and more things go online if these things can be done online and they can submit them there. And the tutors could have access to look at things and to help them because it means they can go away and do it in their own time. I don’t necessarily reflect straightaway because if something happens on clinic that I haven’t, if I haven’t had a great experience I’m a bit wound up at the time so, my thinking’s not particularly clear so I wouldn’t think about it until later when I’m a lot more calm and reasonable and I think that would be better for the students because they’ve got time and they can access something where they can look at the questions and start to think about it(Participant 4, staff)
4. Discussion
5. Conclusions
Author Contributions
Funding
Institutional Review Board Statement
Informed Consent Statement
Data Availability Statement
Acknowledgments
Conflicts of Interest
References
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Student Participants | Staff Participants | |
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Experience | All 3 BDS | Clinical Tutor in Paediatric Dentistry Specialty Trainee and Clinical Tutor in Paediatric Dentistry Clinical Tutor and Specialist in Paediatric Dentistry Professor and Consultant Paediatric Dentistry |
Number of Participants | 10 | 4 |
Gender (F/M) | 8/2 | 4/0 |
Mean and Range Interview Length (Mins) | 25:87 (17:59–33:23) | 12:10 (8:57–16:20) |
Understanding of Reflection | Preparation for Reflection | Importance of Learning through Experience | Suggestions for Development |
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Campbell, F.; Jack, K.; Rogers, H. A Qualitative Exploration of Existing Reflective Practices Used by Undergraduate Dental Students in Paediatric Dentistry. Dent. J. 2022, 10, 1. https://doi.org/10.3390/dj10010001
Campbell F, Jack K, Rogers H. A Qualitative Exploration of Existing Reflective Practices Used by Undergraduate Dental Students in Paediatric Dentistry. Dentistry Journal. 2022; 10(1):1. https://doi.org/10.3390/dj10010001
Chicago/Turabian StyleCampbell, Faith, Kirsten Jack, and Helen Rogers. 2022. "A Qualitative Exploration of Existing Reflective Practices Used by Undergraduate Dental Students in Paediatric Dentistry" Dentistry Journal 10, no. 1: 1. https://doi.org/10.3390/dj10010001