A New Approach to Measuring Student-Teacher Relationship in Dental Education: Validation of the Working Alliance Inventory for Education (WAI-EDU).

Gerhard Schmalz, Stefan Büchi, Dirk Ziebolz, Deborah Kreher, Thomas Gerhard Wolf, Daniela Ackermann-Piek

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Article in Medical science educator, 2025. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Not yet cited in PubMed.

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5 · Who and what money

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6 authors.

Gerhard SchmalzDepartment of Conservative Dentistry and Periodontology, Brandenburg Medical School (MHB), Theodor Fontane, Geschwister-Scholl-Straße 36, 14776 Brandenburg an Der Havel, Germany.

Stefan BüchiMedix Gruppenpraxis, Zurich, Switzerland.

Dirk ZiebolzDepartment of Conservative Dentistry and Periodontology, Brandenburg Medical School (MHB), Theodor Fontane, Geschwister-Scholl-Straße 36, 14776 Brandenburg an Der Havel, Germany.

Deborah KreherDepartment of Conservative Dentistry and Periodontology, Brandenburg Medical School (MHB), Theodor Fontane, Geschwister-Scholl-Straße 36, 14776 Brandenburg an Der Havel, Germany.

Thomas Gerhard WolfDepartment of Restorative, Preventive and Pediatric Dentistry, School of Dental Medicine, University of Bern, Bern, Switzerland.

Daniela Ackermann-PiekSRH Fernhochschule - The Mobile University, Riedlingen, Germany.

Funding

No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.

6 · The paper itself

Abstract

Background: This study aimed at an initial validation of the Working Alliance Inventory for Education (WAI-EDU), an instrument to assess student-teacher relationship (STR). Methods: The WAI-EDU was derived from the original Working Alliance Inventory to fit the context of higher education. Following a pre-test, the tool was applied to two different study settings. In the first study part, 81 clinical students completed the WAI-EDU at baseline, after 1 h (t1), and after 1 w (t2), to assess reliability. For comparison, a visual analogue scale (VAS) was also used to evaluate STR. In the second study part, 60 preclinical students completed the WAI-EDU at baseline and at a follow-up after 1 week of intensive education. Cronbach's Results: Cronbach's Conclusion: The WAI-EDU demonstrated robust reliability and validity in measuring STR. These findings suggest that the WAI-EDU is a promising tool for evaluating STR. Supplementary Information: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s40670-025-02306-x.

Indexed as

Dental educationRelationship, instrument validationSelf-reflectionUndergraduate education

Identifiers

PMID40625994

DOI10.1007/s40670-025-02306-x

PMCPMC12228614

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