Students' views on the value of a dental history course

This article reports the results of a five year survey (1991-1995) of students' attitudes regarding the value of a dental history course at Oregon Health Sciences University. The responses were obtained within a few weeks of completion of the dental history course and were anonymous. The survey consisted of four statements for students to respond to by indicating "strongly agree", "agree", "disagree" and "strongly disagree". The statements related to whether or not students felt, after taking the course, that a dental history course could be expected to (1) clarify misinformation, (2) broaden one's view of dentistry, (3) promote pride and appreciation and (4) provide information that is basic to professional education. The overwhelming majority of students (76.6-80.4%) strongly agreed with all four statements and almost all of the remaining students (19.2-23%) marked "agree" to all four questions.