Assessing the Students’ Perception of the Quality of Dental Program offered in Saudi Arabia

1. INTRODUCTION

Program evaluation is termed a methodical process of changing intricacy associated with data gathering, observations, and analyses, concluding in a value decision concerning the program's quality being assessed, considered in its total, or using some of its components [1]. Program evaluation refers to applying assessment approaches, methods, and knowledge to methodically evaluate and assess the planning, execution, and efficacy of programs [2]. It provides the stakeholders with a meaning of quality for their program. Program evaluation models alone are not likely to focus on the assessment of quality implementation. Such models emphasize systematic data collection on the program and describe strengths and weaknesses to pursue decision-making [1]. The program assessment aims to provide feedback on how the program could be enhanced. It informs faculty and decision-makers about the contribution and impact of the program. It informs the stakeholders regarding the achievements of the program. It offers support for program review, strategic planning, and accreditation [3]. Students' evaluation surveys on specific aspects of higher education institutions (HEIs), including programs, provide valued information, thus helping in managing higher education quality [4]. Accordingly, higher education institutions (HEIs) are actively engaged in assessing their programs' quality using students' feedback since those are the primary customers of HEIs [5, 6].

Though various health science programs are offered by HEIs, the dental program is treated as one of the vital programs since the dental professions play an essential role in meeting the oral health necessities and individuals’ demands [7]. Generally, the dental program is offered by dental schools in various countries around the world. The dental workforce is rising as more students graduate from dental schools, and supplementary expatriate dentists are licensed in the United States [8]. As such, various dental schools in Saudi Arabia offer dental program to the student community across the globe. In Saudi Arabia, an intense rise in dental colleges' count was observed in less than a decade. Such a rise showed a substantial increase in the volume of dental graduates, and thereby demanded a rise in the job openings for the fresh dental graduates [9]. However, the COVID-19 pandemic pushed Saudi and global HEIs to close down and the students were directed to practice social distancing as the critical preventive approach [10]. Though the COVID-19 pandemic has led to several snags in delivering clinical dentistry, dental instructors are offered the chance to update their methods to proper pedagogy through recent digital ideas and improving online communication and usage of learning platforms [11].

Concerning Saudi dental schools' accreditation, National Center for Academic Accreditation and Assessment (NCAAA) is authorized to observe academic accreditation processes and grant academic accreditation for HEIs, including dental schools. Dental schools must evaluate their program from the students' perspective using surveys, thereby improving dental education quality and attaining academic accreditation. In the Saudi Arabian context, an earlier study utilized the program evaluation survey (PES) at the end of the program to assess the students’ experience of the undergraduate dental program offered by a Saudi University. It has been concluded that irrespective of timing for PES, there is a need for improvement related to every question confirming continuing developmental phase [12]. It also conducted a comparative appraisal between PES and student experience survey (SES) concerning the undergraduate dental students’ experience of their program. Another study by Al Rubaish [13] discussed the utility of the global items’ results with the individual items in enhancing the quality of higher education. The students’ experience at the end of their academic programs offered by a Saudi medical and dental school was evaluated using PES. The results demonstrated the poorly graded global items results. This finding indicates the need to emphasize global item findings and attain ongoing progress in all the areas emphasized in the survey. To warrant the findings' generalizability even in identical settings, the programs comprising more students would be a better choice. Abdelsalam et al. [14] explored the faculty and students’ level of satisfaction with their dental curriculum in a Saudi dental school. A high level of satisfaction was reported by faculty than students as faculty perceived that the curriculum developed proficient graduates. Areas that required to be focused on were revealed to restructure the future curriculum in order to make good graduates with capabilities associated with the international benchmarks and Saudi Arabia Qualification Framework recommendations.

While reviewing the previous literature, two studies by Al Rubaish in 2011 [12, 13] assessed the dental students' feedback using PES, where the first one dealt with the comparative analysis of PES timings with the student experience survey (SES) and another study with the global items' usefulness. However, in the Saudi Arabian context, no exclusive studies have focused on evaluating dental program's quality from the students' perspective in recent times, considering the COVID-19 pandemic. Hence, this study intended to assess the students' perception of the quality of undergraduate dental program offered at Saudi dental schools. The findings would help policymakers of Saudi dental schools frame strategies for improving and sustaining the quality of dental program.

2. MATERIALS AND METHODS

3. RESULTS

Out of 445 completed surveys by the participants, 182 (41%) were male, and 263 (59%) female. Those respondents were Saudis. The distribution of respondents belonging to the selected dental schools, namely King Saud University (KSU), King Abdulaziz University (KAU), Imam Abdulrahman Bin Faisal University (IAU), and Al Jouf University (JU), was observed as 146 (33%), 132 (30%), 91 (20%), and 76 (17%), respectively. The response rate was assessed as 84%. Further, the demographic characteristics of the respondents are described in Table 1. The results showed that the mean score of the survey dimensions, namely faculty characteristics, institutional characteristics, efficacy of the program, and program changes due to the COVID-19 pandemic, was 4.27, 4.16, 4.22, and 4.31, respectively. Based on the adopted criteria, these dimensions were perceived as “High Quality.” The range of the mean score of the items under four dimensions was observed from 3.78 to 4.46. While analyzing the cumulative percentage results, the highest value was observed as 86.5% indicating that the students agreed that their dental college offered sufficient knowledge and insisted on good practice to combat COVID-19. As the lowest value, 62% agreed that the library resources were sufficient and available when the students needed them. A total of 10 items were observed with a cumulative percentage of more than 80% and graded as “High Quality,” and the remaining items were observed as “Acceptable” (i.e., 60-80%). The global item showed a mean score of 4.49, and 89.2% of respondents were overall satisfied with the quality of their learning experiences at their institution's dental program, and it was graded as “High Quality” (Table 2).

Further, MANOVA showed a significant difference in the students' perception of the quality of their dental program with respect to their gender and dental schools (p<0.05) (Table 3). While reviewing the mean agreement score of students as regards to gender, females showed a higher mean score than males in all dimensions except for program changes due to the COVID-19 pandemic (Table 3). Besides, the students’ perception of each dimension of the Dental PES concerning their dental schools was revealed using ANOVA (Table 4). The results showed a significant difference in the dental students’ perception over the two dimensions, namely faculty characteristics and efficacy of the program. However, the remaining dimensions failed to show a significant difference. Subsequently, a Tukey’s HSD post-hoc test was performed with the significant dimensions observed in ANOVA concerning the dental schools. While observing the students' perception of faculty characteristics, a significant mean difference was found between KSU and Al Jouf (p<0.05). Based on the mean score, it is revealed that the dental students of KSU were more satisfied with faculty characteristics than those of KAU, IAU, and Al Jouf. Further, a significant mean difference was observed between KSU and Al Jouf (p<0.05) concerning the efficacy of the program. Based on the mean score, it has been observed that the dental students of KSU were more satisfied with the efficacy of the program than those of KAU, IAU, and AlJouf.

Regarding the dental students’ overall satisfaction, the independent ‘t’ test revealed a significant gender difference in the students’ overall satisfaction. Overall, female students (mean=4.54) were more satisfied than male students (mean=4.43) concerning the quality of the learning experience with the dental program offered at their dental schools (p<0.05) (Table 5). Besides, the overall satisfaction of the students’ belonging to the selected Saudi dental schools was observed as 4.65 (KSU), 4.52 (KAU), 4.41 (IAU), and 4.26 (Al Jouf), respectively. There was a significant difference observed in the students’ overall satisfaction with respect to their dental schools (p<0.05) (Table 6). Notably, a significant mean difference was found only between KSU and Al Jouf using Tukey’s HSD post-hoc test.

4. DISCUSSION

In this study, the dental students perceived the dimensions, such as faculty characteristics, institutional characteristics, the efficacy of the program, and program changes due to the COVID-19 pandemic as positive with a mean score of greater than 4.0. Overall, the students’ perception of the quality of learning experience in the dental program offered at their dental schools was observed as 4.49. Using the adopted performance grading criteria, those dimensions and students' overall satisfaction were sorted as “High Quality”, since their mean scores were equal to or greater than 3.6 using a Likert scale. Contrary to these findings, Al Rubaish [13] observed that a Saudi university's dental students rated most items and a global item of PES with the mean score graded as “Acceptable.” However, in this study, the cumulative percentage of 21 items under four dimensions was observed between 60-80%, i.e., Acceptable. It denotes a scope for further improvement, and the policymakers should focus on those items employing the appropriate strategies in order to enhance the quality of dental program offered in Saudi Arabia.

Further, the results indicated a significant difference in the students' perception of dental PES dimensions with respect to their gender and dental schools. Based on the mean score, it has been observed that females were more satisfied than males concerning all dimensions except for program changes due to the COVID-19 pandemic. As the students were observed under the umbrella of public dental schools in Saudi Arabia and were experiencing uniform regulations, this observation might be due to the gender-specific variation in their perception according to their needs and expectations towards the dimensions, such as faculty characteristics, institutional characteristics, the efficacy of the program, and program changes due to the COVID-19 pandemic. In line with this result, Lavin et al. [16] noted that females rated the instructor’s characteristics statistically higher than males, such as professionalism, clear presentations, concise explanations, enthusiasm, responsiveness, and encouragement. Jawaid et al. [17] stated that female students observed their academic environment to be more positive than their male counterparts. Daniel et al. [18] observed that female students were highly satisfied with the university’s facility provision than male students. Besides, a study by Binshehab and Ingle [19] in Saudi Arabia found the undergraduate dental students’ perception regarding online learning to be positive. Aziz Ansari et al. [20] have also observed that 62% of the students expressed their satisfaction with online learning in Saudi universities during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Besides, this study revealed the students' perception of each dimension of dental PES concerning their dental schools. Concerning the faculty characteristics, a significant difference was observed in students' perception of the selected dental schools. This difference might be due to each faculty member's unique qualities and attributes though the faculty member belonging to public dental schools. A study by Riedy et al. [21] revealed a significant difference in students' perceptions of the instructor attributes. Al-Jobair and AlSarheed [22] observed that Saudi dental students perceived their faculty’s performance characteristics as highly vital for their effective learning compared to personality attributes. Cultural and instructive factors play a key role in altering students' perception of the active teacher's qualities.

Regarding the efficacy of the dental program, a significant difference was observed in the perception of the students belonging to the selected dental schools. Though the public dental schools have uniform curriculum content and course delivery, this finding may be due to the variation in the students’ perceived self-efficacy and self-confidence obtained through the dental program. Further, undergraduate dental programs are based on a list of competencies to be achieved by the student in order to be able to function professionally in a dental practice after graduation from the dental school [23]. Students' self-efficacy is sensitive to changes in teaching strategies and plays a spontaneous role in academic skills growth and usage [24]. A recent study by Baaij et al. [25] observed that the self-efficacy of students from Aarhus University did not differ significantly from that of students enrolled in the standard program at the Academic Center for Dentistry at Amsterdam. Besides, Akhlaghi et al. [26] observed that various teaching methods and learning processes influence the students’ self-perceived confidence.

Next, the dimension “institutional characteristics” demonstrated no significant difference in the students’ perception concerning their dental schools. This finding might be because the public dental schools run by the Ministry of Education (MOE) of Saudi Arabia are governed by uniform regulations regarding the institutional facilities and learning environment. Subsequently, there was no significant difference found in students' perception towards the program changes due to the COVID-19 pandemic with reference to their dental schools. This result might be because the MOE has laid the uniform rules for Saudi universities to execute the teaching and learning processes and conduct academic services effectively during the COVID-19 pandemic. During the COVID-19 pandemic, the Saudi MOE declared that the learning process has to be continued through online classes in a harmless and protected manner. Subsequently, all universities comprising medical disciplines shifted to online learning [27]. Alzahrani et al. [11] stated that the COVID-19 pandemic has created clinical dentistry and dental education challenging. However, the dental instructors have the abilities and tools to update their teaching methods through adopting current digital concepts augmenting online communication.

Finally, there was a significant difference observed in the students' overall satisfaction as regards their gender and dental schools. Overall, females were more satisfied than males concerning the quality of the learning experience at their dental schools' program (p<0.05). This finding may be due to the gender-specific variation in the students’ overall satisfaction. In accord with this finding, Sabbagh et al. [28] observed that female students obtained a slightly higher mean Dundee ready educational environment measure (DREEM) score than male students in a Saudi dental school. In contrast, Al-Samadani et al. [29] found no significant gender difference in the mean domain values and total DREEM values among Saudi dental school students.

CONCLUSION

Overall, the students were observed to be highly satisfied with the quality of the dental program offered in their Saudi dental schools. This study revealed that the dimensions, such as faculty characteristics, institutional characteristics, the efficacy of the program, and program changes due to the COVID-19 pandemic, were perceived as “High Quality” by the Saudi dental students. A significant difference was also noted in the students' perception towards all the dimensions and students' overall satisfaction concerning their gender and dental schools. Further, a significant difference was observed in the perception of students of the selected Saudi dental schools with respect to the faculty characteristics and efficacy of the program. The present study recommends that Saudi dental schools develop suitable strategies which may help enhance the students' satisfaction over the quality of the program being offered.

LIMITATIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS

This study is only limited to assessing the students' perception of the quality of undergraduate dental program offered at public dental schools in Saudi Arabia. It observed a significant difference in the students' perception of dental PES dimensions concerning their gender and dental schools. However, the relationship between dental PES dimensions and students' overall satisfaction could be further revealed. Also, the factors influencing the students' overall satisfaction towards the quality of dental program have been explored. Moreover, future research can be conducted including the students of private dental schools of Saudi Arabia so that a comparison can be made of their perception of the quality of the dental program with the perception of students in public dental schools.

REFERENCES