The use of PLS-PM to analyze progress testing results: the case of Italian degree courses in Dentistry and Dental Prosthodontics

Today, Progress Testing is an established and accepted form of assessing applied knowledge in undergraduate medical curricula. This work aims to test the performance of Italian medical and dental schools and above all the growth of knowledge in the different years analyzed. At this end, we studied longitudinal data from progress testing at Italian Dental University Schools. The contribution of this work is a new perspective on the analysis of progress testing through the use of a growth curve. In particular, from a methodological point of view, we aimed to demonstrate that the PLS-PM approach can be successfully used to estimate growth curves. The results of this first analysis confirm a thesis already present in the literature, according to which a substantial amount of variation can be attributed to different rates in the growth of knowledge across medical schools.