Application of the diligence inventory in dental education

The fifty-five-item Diligence Inventory for Higher Education (DI-HE) was applied to a new subject group--190 dental students. After item and factor analysis, a fifty-item (four subscale) inventory best reflected this group. The DI-HE's split half reliability was 0.81 (p < 0.001), the reliability coefficient for the pre- and post-test was 0.68 (p < 0.01), and the correlation coefficient alpha was 0.90. The DI-HE scores were high, with no statistical differences among the four classes. Overall, significant relationships were found between grade point averages (GPAs) and DI-HE total and subscale scores, with r values as high as 0.44. While female students' DI-HE scores were significantly higher (p = 0.023) than male students' scores, no correlations between DI-HE scores and GPAs for females were found. The results suggest that DI-HE may be useful for assessment purposes in professional education.