Abstract
Objectives : This study is aimed to help the dental hygiene department students to improve their adaptive ability to the field work by letting them know the performing levels required of the job world, by renovating the knowledge-centered curriculum, and by finding out the core competencies needed for successfully performing their duties and tasks in the work field. Methods : The survey tool was recomposed through the examination of the preceeding studies on basic vocational competencies and skills, and the survey has been done to 200 dentists in Seoul and Gyunggi provice. Results : 1. As for the job-getting routs, 35.1% of them finds their jobs through the job portal sites, and 21.3% through the recommendation by professors. So we can see the meaningful difference in the employment ways. 2. Dental hygiene clinics think that the purpose of their cooperation with the colleges is mainly to secure human resources by requiring the colleges to give field-centered education the colleges through. 3. The clinics for dental hygienic students' field learning have a great power for hiring the students. So it is necessary to set up a good management system of the clinics for dental hygienic students' field learning in order to reinforce the students' competitive power in getting jobs. 4. The priorities in basic working abilities needed for the task performance are in the order of vocational responsibility, self-managing & developing ability, interpersonal skill, and problem solving ability. 5. The core competencies required of those who graduate from dental hygiene school show the following scores by Likert measurement; good personality and vocational consciousness 2.16(${\pm}.677$), understanding power of major-related knowledge 2.19(${\pm}.723$), field adapting ability 2.31(${\pm}.748$), get-along-with ability 2.32(${\pm}.799$), interpersonal skill 2.42(${\pm}.768$), and self-development ability such as getting certificates 2.43(${\pm}.729$). Among the core competencies, the only meaningful factor which influences on their satisfaction measurement has been identified as the professional ability related to the major. Conclusions : The results suggest that the knowledge and skill related to the major are core competencies of able human resources and closely related with the professionality of the job, and so they are very important. However, job basic abilities are also proved to be important, which reinforce the students' activeness, self-regulation, and creativeness, and help them to pursue their lasting growth in their abilities.