Factors affecting pre-doctoral dental students' selection of advanced dental education: A cross-sectional study

Understanding the motivators and obstacles behind pursuing advanced dental education is essential in planning pedagogy, mentorship programs, and curricula that support dental students to achieve their future career goals.

The objective of this study was to investigate factors influencing dental student's choice to pursue a postgraduate specialization at University of New England College of Dental Medicine with a focus on student personality. Factors examined include demographics, religious affiliations, prior education, dental experiences, expected debt, past career choices, beliefs about the process of specialization, and personality types.

A total of 232 dental students (91.6% response rate) completed a self-administered questionnaire. About 21.6% of dental students intended to pursue a dental specialty while 38.8% wanted to pursue a nondental Masters' program. Approximately one-third of dental students were interested in practicing as general dentists or pursuing additional training in general dentistry. Orthodontics and Pediatric Dentistry were the top choices for dental specialization.

Being younger, having a dentist family member, nonwhite ethnicity, and having Extraverted and Sensing personality were found to be significant predictors of dental students' intention to pursue advanced dental education. Having a unique talent or skills, past exposure to dental treatments, family/peer expectations, geographic location of the residency program and its proximity to the family were the most identified factors while considering residency program.

Results in this study are consistent with previous literature and bring attention to the importance of understanding students' personality in teaching methodologies, mentorship and determining their future goals. The findings allow dental institutions to better prepare their predoctoral candidate for residency.