Teaching and learning in dental student clinical practice

Clinical learning in restorative dentistry is principally centred around the provision of patient care, yet we know very little about the learning processes occurring within the clinical environment. A study of undergraduate dental student clinical practice used a combination of group interview and questionnaire techniques to explore some of the characteristics of student/teacher interaction that students finds significant, and which they consider to affect their learning of clinical skills. Study data, when analysed, revealed three major categories of teacher or student behaviour which appear to be of importance to students. This paper focuses on one of these, describing a number of behaviours, grouped together under the category of 'teaching/learning behaviours'. The aim of the paper is to report these results and to discuss their application to clinical teaching of restorative dentistry.