Assessing psychomotor skills: the role of the Crawford Small Parts Dexterity Test as a screening instrument.

The Crawford Small Parts Dexterity Test, a performance test designed to measure eye-hand coordination, was administered to 71 freshman dental students prior to their first-semester classes and again in their senior year. Zero-order and stepwise multiple regression analyses compared the predictor variables commonly used for dental school admissions decisions and the dexterity test scores with the mean performance in four preclinical laboratory courses and overall dental school performance. The results indicate that CSPDT assessment may improve selection accuracy when used with current measures. Significant gender interaction effects were observed.