A PHENOMENOLOGICAL STUDY OF PREDOCTORAL DENTAL STUDENTS’ EXPERIENCES WITH SERVICE-LEARNING

Abstract

The purpose of this qualitative phenomenological study is to understand predoctoral dental students’ lived experiences with service-learning (SL) in general dentistry and explore how these experiences influence their perceptions of community service and future professional practice. Purposive sampling will be used to identify predoctoral students from dental schools with SL rotations that satisfy the study criteria. A SL rotation in this study is defined as an experiential learning approach that aims to encourage civic awareness and participation. The sample for this study is senior predoctoral dental students enrolled in an accredited dental school program in the United States that participate in a SL clinical rotation during their dental education training. Data will be collected by performing virtual semi-structured interviews. Data analysis includes an iterative process and inductive approach where a thematic framework is developed to create an initial list of codes and analyze data to develop themes and descriptions of the participants’ experiences and report the essence of the phenomenon. SL experiences in dental schools vary in their organization, structure, type of assessments used, length of the experience, and type of learning site. It is not clear whether students get comparable SL experiences that might impact their perspectives on community service and future professional practice. In addition, this study will expand the understanding of Mezirow’s (2000) transformative learning theory and add to the base of the theoretical literature. Particularly, dental students SL clinical experiences might present a disorienting dilemma which is connected to the initiation of the transformative learning process.