INTERPRETATION OF RESULTS AND DISCUSSION 5.1 Introduction
5.3 Summary of perceptions of educators by demographic and or biographic variables
The variation of perceptions by demographic and or biographic variables are indicated in Tables 4.18 to 4.24. The focus of this data analysis was to match the eight categories against the demographic and biographic variables. Table 4.23 shows a summary of responses in category 4 + 5 (positive responses) by years in academic dentistry,
As indicated in the previous chapter, Fisher’s exact test was used for comparison of three percentages where there was a consistent upward or downward trend over the three categories, as an indication of the significance of that trend. The category of evidence based health sciences education showed a consistent increase of positive responses by number of years in academic dentistry. This consistent upward trend was found to be statistically significant (p<0,05).
Similar observations were made by Kassebaum et al. (2004), that the number of years in academic dentistry seem to have an influence on the teachers perceptions of evidence based health sciences methodology. It would appear that moving from a novice clinician / educator to an expert clinician is associated with the ability to make meaning of the information available and make connections to other data (Regehr and Norman, 1996), hence the consistent increase of positive responses by number of years in academic dentistry.
From Table 4.23 there seems to be an inverse relationship between community orientation and numbers of years in academic dentistry i.e. consistent decrease in community orientation with the increase in years in academic dentistry (Davies, 1999; Masella, 2005) even though this tendency was not found to be statistically significant.
A similar trend was observed with problem-based learning, where there was a consistent decrease with the number of years in academic dentistry even though this trend was not found to be statistically significant. It would seem that the more experienced teachers tend to be more entrenched in the traditional approach to teaching and learning (Hendricson and Cohen, 2001).
Table 4.24 shows a summary of responses in category 4 + 5 (positive responses) by age cohort.
Education for capability does not seem to be influenced by the age of the respondents. Community orientation on the other hand showed a consistent downward trend. When using Fisher’s exact test it was found to be significant at the 10% level. This perspective is confirmed by Crain (2008) when she analyzes factors influencing change in dental education. In Table 4.23 there was also a downward trend between community orientation and academic experience which is closely associated with the age of the respondents. A central component of community-based education is reflection (Seifer, 1998; Eckenfels, 1997). In the absence of reflection, a service experience will merely constitute an event (Eyler and Giles, 1999). Reflection as a mode of inquiry is therefore key important to gain meaning and education from a service experience (Eyler, Giles and Schmiede, 1996). However, this reflection by
students must be facilitated or stimulated by the teacher or lecturer. It would appear that the younger educators are more amenable to this type of pedagogy.
According to Fraser and Bosanquet (2006) the term curriculum can have different meanings – product or process. For those with a product focus, the curriculum means a unit or programme outline that defines the content and directs students’ learning, it is usually teacher-centred. For those with a process focus, the curriculum frames the learning environment, has a strong focus on processes of learning and students and teachers collaborate, communicate and challenge each other. It would appear therefore, that the number of years in academic dentistry and the age of respondents have an influence on the inclination of the teacher being either product of process focused.
With self-directed learning there was an upward trend with the age cohorts. However, it was found not to be statistically significant.
With problem-based learning there was a downward trend by age cohorts, although not statistically significant. A similar trend was observed in Table 4.23 which seems to imply that age and or number of years in academic dentistry has an influence on the inclination or not towards problem-based learning.
5.4 Conclusion
What seems to emerge from the interpretation of results is the following:
• Ownership of the curriculum by all relevant stakeholders is not sufficiently emphasized in South African dental schools. This therefore implies that there is not sufficient centralized curriculum planning.
• There seems to be minimal encouragement by educators of vertical integration between the basic sciences and the clinical sciences.
• Most of the educators do not perceive early clinical contact with patients as important and by implication disregard the importance of context specificity in the teaching and training of dentists.
• The educators’ perception is that establishing a core curriculum will have no benefit to controlling information overload.
• Most of the educators are products of the traditional curriculum and as a result have difficulty in adapting to change.
• Most of the educators are of the opinion that imparting knowledge does not contribute to resistance to curriculum change.
• In terms of curriculum organization and planning, most of the educators are product rather than process oriented, as a result the curriculum is teacher-directed.
• A large proportion of the educators agree with the application of constructive pedagogy.
• The majority of educators have a perception that teaching is not a form of scholarship, they would rather spend more of their time doing research. This assumes that the research they would be undertaking would not be educational research.
• Most of the South African dental schools emphasize transferring technological skills to students.
• Most of the educators agree with curricula with community orientation that support and encourage experiential learning by students.
• Even though there seems to be support for the process of learning facilitation rather than didactic teaching, most of the educators are essentially oriented towards traditional teaching.
• It would seem that most educators in South African dental schools do not use PBL in their teaching and learning practice.
• The high proportion of educators who were not sure about the evidence base of the curriculum change within their schools, could be associated with the current culture within South African dental schools of downplaying the scholarship of teaching (including educational research).
• Almost all the educators agree that information technology should be used as a resource for encouraging and supporting self-directed learning.
• Most of the educators had a positive perception of service-learning as a form of pedagogy.
• The category of evidence-based health sciences education showed a consistent increase of positive responses by number of years in academic dentistry. This observation could be related to the more experienced educator having the ability to make meaning of the information available and make connections to other data.
• It would seem from the data analysis that the more experienced educators tend to be more entrenched in the traditional approach to teaching rather than the learner-centred approaches.
• On the contrary it would appear that the younger inexperienced educators are more amenable to innovative forms of pedagogy such as community- based education and problem-based learning.
This chapter has attempted to interpret the meaning of the data and discuss the data within the context of the theoretical base of the study, viz. the review of the relevant literature. The final chapter will present the overall conclusions of the study and make possible recommendations.
CHAPTER 6