2017 Volume 32 Issue 3 Pages 357-364
It is considered that trainees who undergo elderly simulation experience training, through experiencing changes in the physical conditions of the elderly, can develop psychological empathy with the elderly and learn experientially how to support elderly people. The Department of Geriatric Dentistry, Osaka Dental University has been providing dental students with an elderly simulation experience training program as pre-clinical education between the basic dental education and dental clinical training curriculums since 2001. In this study, we evaluated the factors affecting the learning effects of elderly simulation experience training by text-mining analysis of reports based on an open-ended question method, using a natural language processing package and multivariate analysis. The analyses focused on the effects of characteristics of training practitioners and the sex of trainees.
We used 253 responses to the open-ended questions by the fourth-grade dental students of Osaka Dental University after participating in elderly simulation experience training as a pre-clinical education program before dental clinical training. Data were analyzed by a text-mining software package, KH Coder 2.00 e. Co-occurrence analysis revealed that there were differences in the understanding of the physical condition of the elderly, and in psychological empathy, between male and female trainees, as well as between training practitioners. The results revealed that, in order to improve the learning effect of elderly simulation experience training, we need to consider differences in learning between male and female trainees. Furthermore, it is also important to review and refine the experience items and contents of instructions provided by training practitioners.
