Students’ Views on Professionalism as a Window into Their Professional Identity Formation

Purpose: Professional identity formation (PIF) provides a process-based framework for understanding professionalism, focusing on how individuals integrate professional values and roles into their broader sense of self. Limited research has examined how dental students perceive professionalism and how these perceptions shape their developing professional identities. Understanding these perspectives may provide insight into their PIF journey and help inform the design of educational strategies to address their need. Method: An online survey, consisting of both open-ended and close-ended questions, was emailed to undergraduate students in the Faculty of Dentistry at one Canadian university. Descriptive statistics were conducted using JASP (Version 0.16.1; https://jasp-stats.org), and thematic analysis of qualitative data was performed using NVivo software (Version 12; QSR International). Results: The participants reported that they felt they had a good understanding of professionalism and expressed confidence in identifying unethical behaviours within clinical settings. While students noted that professionalism is an important element of dental education, some believed that values such as empathy, honesty, and respect could not be fully taught through a professional program. Students provided several recommendations to enhance professionalism education: 1) the role of dental school role models in teaching professionalism should be taken more seriously, 2) explicit discussions on professionalism issues should be integrated throughout the entire program, and 3) effective methods should be designed and employed to measure students’ professionalism development. Conclusion: Based on students’ perspectives reflected in the survey, our findings suggest that the adoption of professional values by students should not be assumed but must be purposefully and explicitly discussed throughout the program. Professional identity formation is a developmental process for every learner, and understanding their views on professionalism—along with identifying ways to enhance education in this area—can provide valuable insight into how their professional identity is shaped.