Continuing Professional Development (CPD) for the dental profession in Australia: an approach and its implications
Date
2015
Authors
Fricker, John Peterie
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Abstract
In this thesis, I argue that in order to keep up to date with
knowledge, technology and clinical procedures, professional
practitioners need to continue to learn throughout life and build
on their previous knowledge and experience. To this end, I have
taken a range of responses from a sample of practising dentists
in regional Australia. This study’s original contribution to
the field of professional education is a newly gained
understanding of attitudes of practising dentists to Continuing
Professional Development (CPD), including more specifically these
dentists’ attitudes towards CPD as a learning experience, and
the incentives for and barriers to their engagement in this
learning.
In addition, I have explored two related areas within the sample
group against the background variables of sex, age of
practitioner and type of practice. The first explored area was
the range of associations between learning and incentives and
barriers, and attitudes to the usefulness of, and extent of
engagement in CPD. The second area related to the attitudes to
mentoring, updating components of dental practice and
accreditation of CPD. I question if these attitudes are possible
predictors of effective CPD with this hypothesis: Those who
prefer to learn through social interaction and/or collaboration
with others are more likely to have a positive attitude to
engagement in Continuing Professional Development (CPD).
I begin with an extensive review of the literature on the
concepts of professions and professionalism. I follow with a
review of existing research of CPD as professional learning
throughout a lifetime of practice, alongside a review of existing
research of professional learning through interaction and/or
collaboration with others.
The study’s data on attitudes and behaviours to CPD were
gathered through a self-managed questionnaire sent to a
population of registered dentists in the ACT and surrounding
regions. 325 practising dentists were invited to participate with
a response rate of 44 percent. The results of the survey showed
the most useful activities for CPD were hands-on workshops, which
were effective for updating clinical and procedure skills; and
lectures, which were effective for updating knowledge. Mentoring
was strongly supported by the whole profession with older
dentists prepared to act as mentors and younger dentists willing
to be mentored. The most significant incentives to engage in CPD
were course content, quality of presenter and relevance to
practice.
There were significant differences in attitudes to CPD between
males and females and older and younger age groups. For example,
females generally preferred more social learning environments
than males. Costs related to CPD were more of a discouraging
factor for younger dentists and motivational factors related to
intellectual curiosity were strongest in younger males but modify
with age such that older females were more self-motivated than
other groups. Overall, differences in attitudes between
specialists and general practitioners were small, except for
intellectual curiosity and willingness to act as mentors where
specialists dominated.
The results and implications of this study will be valuable to
any future offering of CPD to professionals in Australia. It has
built upon previous research by offering a new framework for
effective CPD for all professions. This new CPD framework aligns
course content with CPD activities that have been demonstrated as
useful and which have been reported as actually engaged in, with
the learning characteristics of the target demographics. The CPD
framework has been developed within the Australian context and
the rapidly changing demographics of Australian dental practice.
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Keywords
Continuing professional development, Lifelong learning, Professionalism, Adult education, Dentistry
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Type
Thesis (PhD)
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DOI
10.25911/5d78d55c19e76