Predictive utility of performance of students of dentistry in the first periodic assessment.

Background: Predicting students who need extra support academically may help initiate early remedial measures. We assessed the predictive utility of the first periodic assessment as a tool to identify students who need additional curricular support in the first year of Bachelor of Dental Surgery (BDS) course.

Methods: We retrospectively compared the performance of two batches of BDS students in the first periodic assessment and final university examination. The students were divided into three groups on the basis of their ranks in the first periodic assessment as high, middle and low achievers. We assessed the tendency of the students to be in the same group in the university examination.

Results: Though the performance of all the three groups improved significantly from the first periodic assessment to the final university examination, 73% of low achievers and 80.6% of high achievers stayed in the same group in both examinations. All those who failed in the final university examination were from the low achiever group.

Conclusion: Performance of students in the first periodic assessment is a valid tool to identify students who need additional curricular support.