Table 1.
Study design and response rates.
Table 2.
List of categories for students’ responses to open-ended questions regarding expected/experienced differences between dental and undergraduate educations for both cross-sectional and longitudinal studies.
Fig 1.
Cross-sectional study open-ended question responses.
D1 (class of 2019), D2 (class of 2018), D3 (class of 2017), and D4 (class of 2016) students’ responses to expected/experienced differences between (A) undergraduate classes and dental school classes, (B) undergraduate instructors and dental school instructors, and (C) undergraduate non-classroom experiences and non-classroom experiences in dental school surveyed in 2015.
Fig 2.
Cross-sectional study Likert scale-type responses.
D1 (class of 2019), D2 (class of 2018), D3 (class of 2017), and D4 (class of 2016) students’ responses to expected/experienced differences between dental school and undergraduate regarding (A) preparedness for dental school, (B) workload, (C) ability to manage time, (D) stress level, and (E) rate of academic support. For preparedness, 0 = Very inadequate, 1 = Somewhat inadequate, 2 = Somewhat adequate, and 3 = Very adequate. For workload, 0 = Much less, 1 = Less, 2 = About the same, 3 = More, and 4 = Much more. For time management, 0 = Much worse, 1 = Worse, 2 = About the same, 3 = Better, and 4 = Much better. For stress level, 0 = Much lower, 1 = Lower, 2 = About the same, 3 = Higher, and 4 = Much higher. For academic support system, 0 = Much worse, 1 = Worse, 2 = About the same, 3 = Better, and 4 = Much better. Data displayed as mean and standard deviation. **P-value < 0.008 and ***p-value < 0.0001 of D2, D3, and D4 in comparison to D1, as determined by Wilcoxon Rank-Sum test.
Fig 3.
Longitudinal study open-ended question responses.
Class of 2019 (D1, D2, D3, and D4) students’ responses to expected/experienced differences between (A) undergraduate classes and dental school classes, (B) undergraduate instructors and dental school instructors, and (C) undergraduate non-classroom experiences and non-classroom experiences in dental school throughout all four years of dental school.
Fig 4.
Longitudinal study Likert scale-type responses.
D1, D2, D3, and D4 (class of 2019) students’ responses to expected/experienced differences between dental school and undergraduate regarding (A) preparedness for dental school, (B) workload, (C) ability to manage time, (D) stress level, and (E) rate of academic support. For preparedness, 0 = Very inadequate, 1 = Somewhat inadequate, 2 = Somewhat adequate, and 3 = Very adequate. For workload, 0 = Much less, 1 = Less, 2 = About the same, 3 = More, and 4 = Much more. For time management, 0 = Much worse, 1 = Worse, 2 = About the same, 3 = Better, and 4 = Much better. For stress level, 0 = Much lower, 1 = Lower, 2 = About the same, 3 = Higher, and 4 = Much higher. For academic support system, 0 = Much worse, 1 = Worse, 2 = About the same, 3 = Better, and 4 = Much better. Data displayed as mean and standard deviation. *p-value < 0.05, ** p-value < 0.008 and ***p-value < 0.0001 of D2, D3, and D4 in comparison to D1, as determined by the mixed-effects regression modeling.
Table 3.
Unadjusted coefficients (95% CI) from mixed-effects linear regression for Likert score outcome. Coefficients represent the change in score compared to Year 1.
Table 4.
Coefficients (95% CI) from mixed-effects linear regression for Likert score outcome, adjusted for potential baseline confounding variables. Coefficients represent the change in score compared to Year 1.