Ethical and moral development: aspects relating to professional training in Dentistry Desenvolvimento ético e moral: aspectos relativos à formação profissional em Odontologia

ABSTRACT ObjectiveTo assess the progression of a public university’s dental students through stages of moral development during the course. MethodsA cross-sectional study with 115 students (from the 1 st to the 7 th semester), to whom the “Opinioes sobre problemas sociais” test, adapted and translated to the Portuguese language, was applied. ResultsThe collected answers were charted according to the test manual’s guidelines and data were analyzed by the GraphPad Prism software 6.0 and STATA v.13. Principal morality score values, expressed as a P value (%), were 40.26%; 39.32%; 36.45% and 36.27% for the 1 st , 3 rd , 5 th and 7 th semesters, respectively, with no statistically significant difference between the groups (ANOVA, p = 0.52). ConclusionStudents’ degrees of morality did not vary significantly among the semesters compared, indicating the need for a reorientation of teaching-learning practices that takes the potential of transformative learning into account.Indexing terms: Ethics. Curriculum. Higher education. Morals. Schools.