Fatemeh DABAGHI-TABRIZ, Reza GHAFFARI, Jalal HANAEE, Mohammad BARZEGAR, Nemat BILAN, Ali-Hossein DEHGHANI, Mahdi RAHBAR and Parvin PARTOVI

ABSTRACT

Background and objective: A curriculum is a general and immense outline of an educational activity. A curriculum defines teaching content, student and curriculum assessment methods, and ultimately defines the framework for each activity in the curriculum. Given the importance of training in medicine and dentistry, the purpose of this study was to compare Iran’s general dentistry curriculum with eight of the world’s top dental faculties.
Methods and materials: In descriptive-comparative research, the important components and parameters of the curriculum of the PhD in dentistry at several universities in the world were studied and compared with Iranian curriculum. The present study was conducted in two stages: The first phase included finding the best dental faculties in the world; the second phase was to identify and examine the various components of the curriculum of the PhD in Public Dentistry in Iran and the 8th highest dental faculties in the world and medicompare them according to Loudvigsson indicators. The results of the study were reported using descriptive statistics (frequency and percentage).
Results: All of the evaluated indicators were in the Iranian curriculum. The study of the eight top universities in the world showed that the indicators worth paying attention to, including critical thinking and scientific approach in the program, student-centered curriculum, horizontal and vertical integration, systematic education, education based on community health care system, community-based education and ethical principles, existed in all curricula of the studied colleges. The presence of a selective framework in a curriculum and early clinical exposure was only available in the educational curriculum of four universities: Toronto, UNC, Minnesota and UCLA. The focus on small group work was defined as the prevailing educational method in three Herman Ostrow, Minnesota and UCSF universities. The problem-solving learning index was only presented at two universities in Osaka and NYU.
Conclusion: The highest rates of Loudvigsson indicators in general dentistry curriculums of eight universities in the world were 90% and at least 72.7%, while the above indicators were 100% in the dentistry curriculum of Iran. According to the indicators of Loudvigsson, Iran’s dental training program is ranked high in content.
Keywords: curriculum, dentistry, Loudvigsson indices, top universities in the world

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Fatemeh DABAGHI-TABRIZ, Mahdi RAHBAR, Jalal HANAEE, Reza GHAFFARI, Ali-Hossein DEHGHANI and Parvin PARTOVI

ABSTRACT

Introduction: A curriculum is the general and immense outline of a training activity. The curriculum design determines student assessment and evaluation of the program, and ultimately defines the framework for each activity in the training period. On the other hand, regarding the importance of training in medical sciences, especially dentistry, the present study was conducted with the aim of “investigating the curriculum of some of the specialized fields of dentistry PhD in Iran and some top faculties of the world”. This project is along with “accountable and justice-centered education” and “moving towards third-generation universities” and the package of “developing and upgrading medical education infrastructure”. These packages further emphasize the implementation of policies number 1 (institutionalization of accountable education approach in the health system) and number 12 (the production and localization of credible scientific evidence to promote high-quality health education [research-based training]).
Methods: In a descriptive-sectional study, the important components and parameters of the curriculum of ten international and Iranian dentistry PhD faculties were purposefully selected and investigated. The study was conducted in two phases: the first one included a study to find the 10 top dental faculties in the world that have been credible and pioneer in dentistry education, which was conducted in four phases, and the second phase identified and examined different components of the PhD curriculum (objectives and mission, general structure and educational content, duration of the training period and certificates) in each five fields of study in the assigned top ten faculties and Iran.
Results: Investigation of the intended curriculum characteristics of top 10 out of 50 dental faculties showed that curriculum review was performed in most faculties and curriculums with updated content and structure were used. Likewise, the results of this study have determined that regarding goals and mission, and Iranian universities compared to the credible universities of the world, had more comprehensive goals in all mentioned fields, and would receive a PhD certificate in Iran.
Conclusion: In most of the studied dental faculties, for prominence in the research field which was emphasized by international academic ranking systems, there were several factors influencing the success of training scope such as the presentation and educational mission of diverse curricula, their rich content and appropriate length of terms.
Keywords: training curriculum, specialty field of orthodontics, specialty field of pediatric dentistry, specialty field of prosthodontics dentistry, specialty field of periodontics, specialty field of oral and maxillofacial surgery, Shanghai ranking, QS ranking.

Table Comparison of dentistry curriculum [ PDF ]

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