Mentoring process: analysis of students’ perception of the discipline of Management and Planning in Dentistry at FOUSP

This study aimed to analyze the perception of graduate students in the last year of the Dentistry Course at the University of São Paulo School of Dentistry (FOUSP) of the mentoring process implemented in the discipline of Management and Planning. The sample comprised 122 students enrolled in the Management and Planning discipline at FOUSP. During mentoring, students were divided into groups of eight members, and tutoring meetings were held by post-graduate students to discuss personal and professional issues. At the end of the semester, students answered a questionnaire about the mentoring process and the positive and negative aspects of the discipline. Tutors were trained in the previous semester alongside a pilot study with 20 graduate students. A correspondence analysis was conducted to evaluate the discipline, and a quantitative textual analysis using the Iramuteq software was used to assess the responses to the open questions. Approximately 97% of the students participated in the survey. The majority rated the discipline as good (55.1%) and excellent (33.9%). Regarding the mentoring process, 62.7% considered the activities excellent and 32.2% good. When asked about the strengths of the discipline, 48.3% of students highlighted tutoring. When verifying the co-occurrence and connectivity of the words, a strong relationship was found between the terms “meeting,” “group,” “student,” and “future.” Thus, graduate students’ perception of the mentoring process is positive, which in addition to being an instructional process, also serves as support for the final year at the university. Descriptors: Tutoring. Education. Education, Dental. Students, Dental. Mentoring process: analysis of students’ perception of the discipline of Management and Planning in Dentistry at FOUSP Revista da ABENO • 21(1):1043, 2021 – DOI: 10.30979/revabeno.v21i1.1043 2