title: Personality types of dental school applicants.
abstract: A questionnaire-based prospective study was carried out to measure the personality styles of students being interviewed for a place on the 1997/98 dental undergraduate course in Leeds, England. A total of 334 applicants attended for interview between November 1997 and March 1998, of which 311 anonymously and voluntarily completed a personality questionnaire. The Keirsey Temperament Sorter was used to measure the strength and nature of preferences along four dimensions: extroversion-introversion (E-I), sensing-intuition (S-N), thinking-feeling (T-F) and judging-perceiving (J-P). 4 personality types accounted for 79% of the students, 21% were divided among nine personality types with no type comprising more than 6.7% of the students. The remaining 3 possible personality types were not represented in this student population. Further comparisons revealed significant differences between this student sample and the general population in the judging-perceiving preference and also an intra-group gender difference with regard to the thinking-feeling (T-F) preference. A predominance of the S-J (sensing with judging) temperament type was also confirmed. Personality questionnaires may be a useful adjunct in the selection process of dental school applicants. The identification of a student's working and learning style preference has implications for both the dental undergraduate curriculum and the teaching methods employed by dental school staff.
authors.affiliation: Leeds Dental Institute, Leeds, England, UK.
authors.forename: D O
authors.initials: DO
authors.lastname: Morris
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D001290:Attitude; D016009:Chi-Square Distribution; D004497:Education, Dental; D004644:Emotions; D005120:Extraversion, Psychological; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007407:Interviews as Topic; D007439:Introversion, Psychological; D019545:Intuition; D007600:Judgment; D007858:Learning; D008297:Male; D010465:Perception; D010551:Personality; D010555:Personality Inventory; D011446:Prospective Studies; D012737:Sex Factors; D013223:Statistics as Topic; D013335:Students, Dental / Q000523:psychology; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires; D013694:Temperament; D013850:Thinking