Exploring Students' Views of Portfolio Assignments to Foster Self-reflection in Preclinical Dental Education.

OBJECTIVES: Portfolios, collected evidence of students' learning and achievement, have been widely used in health profession education for learning and assessment purposes. However, little has been documented on their use to foster self-reflection in preclinical dental education. This exploratory study assessed students' views of portfolio assignments to foster self-reflection in preclinical operative dentistry courses. METHODS: Participants were first- (Y1) and second-year (Y2) undergraduate dental students who completed a preclinical operative course in the College of Dentistry at the University of Saskatchewan. These students were asked to answer an online post-course survey to assess their view of the portfolio assignments that were part of the course. Specifically, they were asked to rate 13 statements related to experiential and instrumental outcomes of portfolio assignments (outcome evaluation) and their level of comfort with the activities involved in completing the assignments (process evaluation) on a 5-point Likert scale from strongly agree (1) to strongly disagree (5). Descriptive statistics (standard deviation, mean) were used to report the data. A t test was performed to assess statistical differences between Y1 and Y2 dental students. RESULTS: Of the 69 students enrolled in the preclinical courses, 25 Y1 and 25 Y2 students completed the survey (72.5%). No statistically significant differences between the ratings of Y1 and Y2 students were observed (p ≥ 0.05). Their combined ratings showed that students enjoyed the portfolio assignments, found them beneficial and felt comfortable performing the activities involved in developing the portfolios (mean scores 1.54-2.42). CONCLUSION: Students viewed portfolio assignments as a learning tool to foster self-reflection in preclinical operative dentistry courses. Further research is needed to measure the effects of portfolio assignments on student learning, including self-reflection.

Practicum and clinical experiences: postpracticum students' views.

The clinical or practicum component of preservice undergraduate education across all disciplines typically is rated by prebaccalaureate students as the most important phase of their entire professional preparation. This study collected e-mail survey responses from 63 post-practicum nursing students who had just completed their culminating fourth-year clinical course. Students identified the most positive and the most negative aspects of that final practicum experience. These responses were compared with those reported by postpracticum students from the disciplines of engineering and teacher education. The cross-disciplinary similarity of these data related to postpracticum students' perceptions of this experiential learning phase of their preservice professional training was noted. The student voice provides a critical dimension to the program-enhancement process for all professional disciplines, and practicum organizers across the disciplines should value such student input and collaborate to improve the clinical phase of preservice education for all professions.

Exploring the meaning of living with HIV as a chronic illness in Kenya: A narrative inquiry.

Since the introduction of antiretroviral medications, HIV has been regarded as a chronic illness. However, people living with HIV continue to experience social consequences of HIV infection such as stigma, discrimination, violence, and other human rights violations. In this paper, we focus on the experiences of Atoti, a person living with HIV in Kenya. We argue that HIV remains a biographically disruptive and exceptional illness that is complicated by its invisibility and unpredictable trajectory. Based on Atoti's experiences, we argue that Bury's (1982) concept of biographical disruption, used to explain the social processes of a person suffering a chronic illness, does not fully capture the complexity of experiencing living with HIV. Focusing on life as a whole, rather than on the disease response and process as a biographical disruption, allows for a deeper appreciation of HIV's complexity as a medical illness with major social ramifications.