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J Dent Educ. 68(9): 985-994 2004
© 2004 American Dental Education Association
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Educational Methodologies

Reliability and Validity of a Manual Dexterity Test to Predict Preclinical Grades

Stuart A. Gansky, Dr.P.H.; Hilary Pritchard, M.S.; Ernest Kahl, D.D.S.; Daniel Mendoza, D.D.S.; William Bird, D.D.S., M.P.H.; Arthur J. Miller, Ph.D.; David Graham, D.D.S.

Dr. Gansky is Assistant Professor, Center to Address Disparities in Children’s Oral Health, Division of Oral Epidemiology and Dental Public Health, Department of Preventive and Restorative Dental Sciences; Ms. Pritchard is special assistant and administrator, Dean’s Office; Dr. Kahl is Clinical Professor, Department of Preventive and Restorative Dental Sciences; Dr. Mendoza is Clinical Professor, Department of Preventive and Restorative Dental Sciences; Dr. Bird is Clinical Professor and Associate Dean, Clinical Affairs; Dr. Miller is Professor, Division of Orthodontics; and Dr. Graham is Clinical Professor, Department of Preventive and Restorative Dental Sciences—all at the School of Dentistry, University of California, San Francisco. Direct correspondence and requests for reprints to Dr. David Graham, Box 0758, Department of Preventive and Restorative Dental, Dental Clinics Building, 707 Parnassus St., University of California, San Francisco, CA 94143-0758; 415-476-1176 phone; dgraham{at}itsa.ucsf.edu.

Key words: psychomotor performance, task performance and analysis, aptitude tests, predictive value of tests, cohort studies, longitudinal studies, follow-up studies, dental students, dentistry, statistical models

Submitted for publication 10/16/03; accepted 06/24/04

The University of California, San Francisco School of Dentistry wanted to determine if a predental school manual dexterity test predicts: 1) subsequent grades in preclinical restorative courses, and 2) faculty perceptions of satisfactory performance in these skills that would indicate the student is ready to advance to the clinic. The study population was comprised of all 244 applicants admitted to UCSF School of Dentistry’s D.D.S. program from Classes of 2000 to 2002 and who matriculated into the program. The manual dexterity test (MDT) consisted of a two-hour block-carving test. Three preclinical faculty, three clinical faculty, and two basic science faculty graded the blocks. Even after instruction and calibration, faculty varied greatly in their grading (intra-rater reliability kappa statistics ranging from 0.34 to 1.00). Two of three preclinical raters gave No Passes for the MDT in 9.8 percent of the incoming, first-year dental students. Of these twenty-three students, only four (17 percent) were in the lower 10 percent of their classes according to their five preclinical restorative laboratory courses after two years, and four (33 percent) were among the twelve students the three preclinical laboratory directors identified as laboratory cautions. The MDT did not significantly (p=0.342) predict students in the bottom 10 percent after five restorative preclinical laboratory courses, above and beyond current admissions criteria. Among current admissions criteria, PAT score was the only item at least moderately correlated with preclinical average percentile class rank (Spearman correlation = 0.34). In conclusion, the MDT did not appear to add information to the current admissions criteria.




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