SATISFACTION WITH DENTAL AND MEDICAL EDUCATION QUALITY AMONG FOREIGN STUDENTS CONSIDERING NON-NATIVE ENGLISH-SPEAKING ORIGIN OF THE TEACHERS

Abstract

Objectives: To evaluate satisfaction with dental and medical education quality among foreign students considering non-native English-speaking origin of the teachers. Materials and Methods: This research was conducted in the form of a questionnaire survey among foreign students of Dental Faculty and Medical Faculty during 2019-2020. The questionnaire was presented in the format of Google-form, published in faculties’ social media group as well as was sent to the e-mail of each student registered via Moodle system. The survey was held considering the anonymity of each respondent and personal willingness of each student to take part in the research. One hundred and sixty-seven students took part in the survey, among which only 82 answered all the questions. Results: 60 (73.2%) respondents rated their satisfaction with the quality of provided educational process as excellent, while 5 (6.1%) and 17 (20.7%) as satisfactory and good, respectively. Such factors as teacher's/lecturer's knowledge of the subject (r=0.72), teacher's/lecturer's knowledge of English (r=0.60), personal motivation (r=0.75), and educational organization considering the aspect of language adaptation (r=0.65) were found to be statistically related to the quality of obtained dental and medical education, subjectively evaluated by the foreign students. Conclusions: Considering limitations of the performed study, it could be resumed that foreign students are generally highly satisfied with provided level of dental and medical education, even though such was carried out by the lecturers for whom English isn’t the native language. Structured interactive sessions, direct-feedback lectures, and additional use of video-podcast are not only preferable among students, but also provide sufficient opportunities for educational process improvement, especially in the settings when both student and teacher are non-native English speakers, and when stationary education is limited due to the COVID-19 pandemic situation. Keywords: Foreign medical graduates, education, dental, medical, communication barriers.