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Personality types of dental school applicants
Author(s) -
Morris David O.
Publication year - 2000
Publication title -
european journal of dental education
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.583
H-Index - 41
eISSN - 1600-0579
pISSN - 1396-5883
DOI - 10.1034/j.1600-0579.2000.040302.x
Subject(s) - personality , feeling , psychology , extraversion and introversion , preference , personality type , temperament , population , dental education , clinical psychology , big five personality traits , social psychology , medicine , dentistry , environmental health , economics , microeconomics
A questionnaire‐based prospective study was carried out to measure the personality styles of students being interviewed for a place on the 1997/98 dental undergraduate course in Leeds, England. A total of 334 applicants attended for interview between November 1997 and March 1998, of which 311 anonymously and voluntarily completed a personality questionnaire. The Keirsey Temperament Sorter was used to measure the strength and nature of preferences along four dimensions: extroversion‐introversion (E‐I), sensing‐intuition (S‐N), thinking‐feeling (T‐F) and judging‐perceiving (J‐P). 4 personality types accounted for 79% of the students, 21% were divided among nine personality types with no type comprising more than 6.7% of the students. The remaining 3 possible personality types were not represented in this student population. Further comparisons revealed significant differences between this student sample and the general population in the judging‐perceiving preference and also an intra‐group gender difference with regard to the thinking‐feeling (T‐F) preference. A predominance of the S‐J (sensing with judging) temperament type was also confirmed. Personality questionnaires may be a useful adjunct in the selection process of dental school applicants. The identification of a student’s working and learning style preference has implications for both the dental undergraduate curriculum and the teaching methods employed by dental school staff.