Survey the Attitude of Faculty Members and Students of the School of Dentistry of Rafsanjan University of Medical Sciences on the Implementation of a New Educational Curriculum during the Academic Year 2018-19

Curriculum evaluation should be concerned with solving problems and improving the present situation. The goal of the general dentistry curriculum is to train dentists with the minimum expected ability. The present study aimed to determine the views of faculty members and dental students on the educational curriculum during the academic year 2018-19.

The present study was descriptive cross-sectional and enumerative. A total of 61 fourth- to sixth-year dental students and 18 faculty members of the School of Dentistry of Rafsanjan University of Medical Sciences, Rafsanjan, Iran participated in the present study during the academic year 2018-19. Inclusion criteria were students who were studying at the time of conducting the study. Data were collected using two questionnaires by Elon Kashkoli. Data analysis was performed by SPSS software (version 21). Descriptive data were presented with mean and standard deviation. Kolmogorov-Smirnov, t-test, Spearman correlation, ANOVA, and Tukey's test were used. A P-value of less than 0.05 is considered to be statistically significant.

The mean score of the attitude of students and faculty members were 68.87 and 62.11, respectively. The attitude of faculty members was moderate and that of students was positive toward the educational curriculum (P= 0.083). The mean scores of the attitude of fourth and fifth-year students are not significantly different from each other (P=0.883). Sixth-year students scored significantly higher compared to the other students (P= 0.01).

Overall, the mean score of the attitude of faculty members and students toward the educational curriculum was moderate. The educational curriculum seems to need to be reviewed in educational titles and practical and theoretical education should be considered in modern teaching methods.