Trial reportJournal of dental education2025
15-Point versus pass/fail grading in orthodontic education: A randomized controlled trial.
Trial report in Journal of dental education, 2025. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 2 papers.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
2 citing papers in PubMed.
- 15-Point versus pass/fail grading in orthodontic education: A randomized controlled trial.Journal of dental education · 2025Trial
- Digital Versus Conventional Appliance Fabrication in Orthodontics: A Prospective Cohort Study on Students' Perception of Education.Journal of dental education · 2026Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
5 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
objectivesThere is a lack of evidence on whether a grading system or a pass/fail system influences manual skills in dental education. This parallel-group randomized controlled trial aimed to assess the influence of a 15-point grading system compared with a pass/fail evaluation on the quality of orthodontic appliances in dental education.
methodsPredoctoral dental students of three orthodontic courses (n = 139) were randomly assigned to either the test group (15-point grading system) or the control group (pass/fail) using sealed envelopes. In both groups, the fabricated orthodontic appliances were assessed by five calibrated dentists using standard criteria. The primary outcome was the quality of the orthodontic appliances using a 15-point grading system. Group differences were evaluated with Mann-Whitney U tests and Fisher ́s exact tests.
resultsThe quality of the orthodontic appliances was slightly higher in the test group (n = 68) compared with the control group (n = 70) in all three courses with mean grading values of 11.63 ± 0.75 versus 11.59 ± 0.99, 10.96 ± 0.83 versus 10.85 ± 0.82, and 10.93 ± 1.15 versus 10.14 ± 1.03. However, a statistically significant difference was found only in course 3 (p = 0.0222). Female participants performed better than males in all three courses (p = 0.0207).
conclusionThe implementation of a 15-point grading system has a positive impact on the quality of appliances in orthodontic education and can be recommended. However, the differences were small and clinically meaningful in only one of the three courses evaluated.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.