# Using E‐portfolios to Identify Threshold Concepts in Removable Prosthodontics

## TL;DR

This study explores how e-portfolios can help identify key learning concepts in removable prosthodontics for dental students.

## Contribution

The study is the first to use e-portfolios to identify threshold concepts in removable prosthodontics education.

## Key findings

- E-portfolios can reveal threshold concepts in dental education.
- Functional occlusion and functional records were identified as potential threshold concepts.
- Students associated these concepts with transformative learning and professional practice.

## Abstract

Training in removable prosthodontics traditionally includes a preclinical laboratory component that precedes clinical exposure. Students struggle to relate the laboratory component to clinical work, because successful learning in removable prosthodontics involves many threshold concepts, some of which have been identified previously. No existing studies consider whether e‐portfolios can help educators and learners identify threshold concepts.

Students at a single dental school in Australia complied an e‐portfolio detailing their learning experiences in a preclinical removable prosthodontics laboratory continuum in 2023. Their responses were analyzed using deductive qualitative analysis.

Two themes were identified (functional occlusion and functional records). Student responses associated each theme with transformative insights, knowledge integration, and bounded professional practice (three features of threshold concepts).

Analysis of e‐portfolios may be used to identify threshold concepts in dental education. Functional occlusion and records, two thematic constructs identified in our analysis, may be threshold concepts in removable prosthodontics.