Quality assurance and dental education assessment at the University of Bordeaux

The three stages of quality assurance are: establishment of a procedure, performing an action and its assessment. In our university, in order to assess the quality of education, two evaluative processes have been put in place: a annual process managed by students, and a quadrennial institutional one managed by a commission composed of students and teachers of the dental school and teachers of other faculties of the university: medicine, pharmacy, sciences. These evaluative processes are adapted to the specificities of each faculty.The faculty of dentistry of Bordeaux has carried out 6 quadrennial assessments since April 99 on restorative dentistry, endodontics, prosthodontics, anatomy and child dental health. After the presentation by the teacher in charge of his course and of the internal assessment made by the students, three aspects were debated: needs - objectives, methods: equipment, volume of hours, staff... and knowledge assessment. Each stage of this evaluative process has itself been graded out of 10 by the participants. The first results of these assessments showed that this approach to quality management is judged very positively (8.5/10) and that it improves the perception of the course both by teachers and students. On the basis of these first assessments, curriculum or educational approach changes have been positively evaluated by students of years 2000 and 2001.We conclude that the establishment of a quality assurance in dental education makes it possible not only to assess the teaching procedures but also the expectations of teachers and students. Keywords: assessment, evaluation, quality assurance, educational research