Changing practices of Suitability Assessment in a Norwegian Education Dental Programme

Abstract

A profound responsibility of higher education is to educate and certify adequately candidates for professional work. However, there are signs indicating that many Norwegian professional programmes fail in this responsibility. In this article, we present and analyse a process of change in a five-year dental education programme at a Norwegian university that had the aim of developing more reliable certification practices through improving their suitability assessment practices. Whatever motivates a need for change, a change of practices in higher education is far from a simple process. By using Kotter’s eight-step change model in a retrospective analysis of the change process, we identified the impetus for change, strategies taken, and their strengths and weaknesses. The analysis demonstrates how research on staff and student knowledge of, and experiences with, the suitability assessment at their Faculty, created a research mindset that promoted change, while also indicating the promise of working with academic development over time in order to create change. While there is still a way to go, the Faculty of Dentistry is definitely on its way to improving the quality of suitability assessment, and meeting their responsibility for educating and certifying their candidates’ adequacy for professional practice.