Metaphorical perceptions of dental students toward dental education: a cross-sectional study from Türkiye

Background Understanding the complex, multifaceted, and often subconscious emotional and cognitive perspectives of undergraduate dental students regarding their education is crucial. Personality types and stress levels are believed to play a significant role in shaping these perceptions. Employing metaphors-using a familiar and concrete concept to explain an unfamiliar or abstract one-is an effective cognitive transfer technique for exploring students' views on dental education. This cross-sectional study aims to investigate dental students' perceptions of their education through metaphor analysis. Additionally, it aims to examine the relationship between students' personality types and stress levels, offering deeper insights into the factors influencing their educational experiences. Methods This cross-sectional study included 1038 undergraduate dental students enrolled in faculties of dentistry at three universities in Turkiye during the 2023-2024 academic year. Data were collected via an electronic survey consisting of four sections. The first section gathered demographic information (gender, age, academic level, and occupational preference). In the second section, participants completed the sentence: Dental education is similar to & mldr; because & mldr; to illustrate their mental representations of dental education. The third section included the Perceived Stress Scale (PSS) to assess stress levels, while the fourth section comprised a personality inventory to determine personality types. All survey data were transferred to Excel for analysis. Metaphors were systematically evaluated, and the most representative ones were identified. Data analysis incorporated both qualitative (metaphor analysis and chi-square tests) and quantitative (linear regression) methods. Results Metaphors were categorized into seven conceptual groups: 'master-apprentice training', 'challenging process-race', 'art-skill-creativity', 'patience-labor', 'union of differences', 'discipline-order-power', and 'unknowability-incomprehensibility-indispensability'. A significant gender difference was observed (p = 0.013): female students predominantly used metaphors in the 'patience-labor' category, while male students favored the 'art-skill-creativity' category. Academic year differences were also significant (p < 0.001), with advanced students more frequently using 'discipline-order-power' metaphors. Stress levels did not significantly differ among groups (p = 0.127), with 72.1% of participants reporting moderate stress, most commonly linked to the 'challenging process-race' category. The majority of participants (64.5%) exhibited a Type B personality. A statistically significant regression model was found between PSS scores and both age (p < 0.001) and personality type scores (p = 0.011). Conclusion This study highlights the influence of personality types and stress levels on dental students' perceptions of their education. Metaphor analysis proved to be an effective tool for identifying these perceptions. The most frequently reported category was 'challenging process-race'. A significant association was found between students' metaphorical categories and their gender and academic level. However, no significant relationships were observed between metaphor categories and occupational preference, stress levels, and personality types.