Module 3 - SLP

Module 3 - SLP

The emerging dental workforce: why dentistry? A quantitative study of final year dental students' views on their professional career

Research question(s)

The major research question of the study related to choice of professional career of the final year students of King's College London in dentistry with respect to sex, ethnicity and mode of entry. The research question was statistically valid because of the diversified choice of career experienced by dentists throughout their career.

Sampling methods/strategies

There are different statistical methods used in the study to analyze the research question i.e. chi - squares test used for the dependence or linear association of variables, multiple regression was used to determine the impact of sex, ethnicity and other demographic variables on motivation of students towards their career . Further, factor analysis and logistic regression also used in the study to briefly analyze the motivation impact.

Recruitment procedures

Due to the shortage of workforce in certain parts of the country, formal recruitment exercises started in locally and internationally. This is the reason that immigration of dentists in UK has certainly increased significantly in comparison to the home students. Skelly and Flemming on the other hand, explained that those applicants should have a realistic idea of the scope of their respective career.

Data collection tool(s) and procedure(s)

The data in the study was collected through a self - administered questionnaire for all final year students at King's College London. A sample of 140 final year students has been taken in the analysis. The questionnaire contains open ended questions so that the students could easily explain their perception and motivations about their career choice. The data was further, entered into SPSS (Wu, & McSweeney, 2007) so that different statistical tools explained previously could be applied on the study. Sampling is carried out deliberately and iteratively in ...