Masters Degrees (Centre for Health Professions Education)
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Browsing Masters Degrees (Centre for Health Professions Education) by Author "Cloete, Colleen Carol Anne"
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- ItemExploring final year dental students’ attitudes toward and understanding of reflection and reflective practice in the Conservative Dentistry Clinics at a South African dental school(Stellenbosch : Stellenbosch University, 2020-12) Cloete, Colleen Carol Anne; Archer, Elize; McNamee, Lakshini S.; Stellenbosch University. Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences. Centre for Health Professions Education.ENGLISH SUMMARY : In the field of health professions education, it is well accepted that reflection and reflective practice have numerous benefits ranging from increasing self-awareness, to promoting learning and behaviour changes, to enabling self-empowerment and ultimately aiding in the development of professional competence. Reflection provides opportunities for students to explore experiences in the workplace and integrate existing knowledge with new understandings. Undertaking this process promotes deep personal and transformative learning, the overarching goal being to foster reflective practitioners who provide holistic patient care. The study was conducted at the University of the Western Cape (UWC), Faculty of Dentistry, where the purpose of the study was to explore students’ attitudes towards reflection and reflective practice and what they understood about practicing reflection in the clinical environment. A phenomenological qualitative approach was used to examine the experiences of final year dental students and this method of inquiry allowed the researcher to gain an understanding of situations through the subjective experiences of the participants, and the meanings these participants attributed to the experiences. All final year dental students enrolled at the UWC, Faculty of Dentistry were eligible to be participants in the research project. Audiotaped individual interviews were conducted in a semi-structured, informant style interview format. Data were analysed applying an inductive approach and using the assignment of codes to organise the data into themes and sub-themes. The findings of this study indicate that students have an understanding of reflection and reflective practice and an idea of the value as it relates to Dentistry, however, their focus is solidly geared toward procedures and techniques with minimal mention of the benefit being related to improving patient care. This finding is aligned with the limited literature on reflection and reflective practice in dental education. Further highlighted in this study was the lack of guidance and support of reflective learning by a number of clinical teachers. It is hoped that this study will better inform educational activities so that the clinical environment becomes a more meaningful learning platform. The facilitation of critical thinking and clinical reasoning will result in improved patient care which would be the ultimate outcome.