Predictors of Dental Hygiene Test Results
Institutions that prepare students for careers in the health professions often focus upon the performance of their students on professional licensure or certification examinations. In the field of dental hygiene, one such examination is the National Board Dental Hygiene Examination (NBDHE). A team of researchers and faculty members at The Ohio State University (OSU) recently published a study that explored the academic factors that statistically related to examination success.
This team used data from 132 (out of a sample of 173) OSU dental hygiene students who graduated between 1998 and 2002. The racial/ethnic profile of the sample was as follows: Caucasian 91%; Asian 5.3%; African American 2.3% and Hispanic 0.8%. The usable sample was 98.5 % female, and the average age at graduation was 25.
The team made the following conclusions, among others:
- "Predictors found to correspond more closely with success on the NBDHE at OSU's dental hygiene program were the CDHYGPA [cumulative dental hygiene grade point average] and the entering three science GPA [biology, chemistry 1, and chemistry 2]. This data appears [sic] to confirm utilizing the three science GPA as a valid predictor of success..."[p.44] [Note: the CDHYGPA correlation, or r, was 0.621.]
- "As to the science courses taken within the dental hygiene program, the course grade in human nutrition [r=0.570] was most strongly correlated with CDHYGPA...followed in decreasing order by the course grades in anatomy [r=0.555], physiology [r=0.521], and microbiology [r=0.446]..."[p.42] [Note: The authors did not report in the article any testing that the above correlations were statistically different at the .05 significance level.]
- "Consistency in site of science preparation seemed to play the largest role. Students who only took science classes in a single four-year institution (OSU), and students who took the equivalent classes in a single two-year institution performed similarly on the NBDHE and had similar mean CDHYGPAs. However, students who divided their science coursework between community colleges and OSU exhibited lower mean CDHYGPAs at the end of the dental hygiene program..." [p.44]
This study has relevance to researchers and administrators who have interest in the education of dental hygienists at both two-year and four-year institutions. It shows that two-year colleges can provide successful academic preparation for students seeking to complete a bachelor's program and to pass a national professional certification exam. It may also help other four-year programs to establish effective admission criteria, especially for their incoming transfer students.
The study team included Susan Bauchmoyer, Michele Carr, Jill Clutter, and Phillip Hoberty (all of The Ohio State University). They document their study in an article ("Predicting Academic and National Board Dental Hygiene Examination Performance Based on Academic Factors") in The Journal of Dental Hygiene (Vol.78, No.1, Winter 2004, pp. 39-45).
[Abstract done by Willard Hom, Director, Research & Planning Unit, System Office, California Community Colleges, 2/3/05]
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