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Novice dentists’ self-efficacy875more readily (Baaij et al. 2020). The novice dentists who participated in this study had stated previously that they would have liked to have more clinical experience with root canal treatments during their undergraduate education (Baaij et al.2020). One might question, however, whether that is actually necessary, as part of the process of building self-efficacy may take place following graduation. At many dental schools, there is a lack of root canal treatments of a suitable difficulty level for the undergraduate students (Divaris et al. 2008). It could be speculated that it would be better to accept less experience with performing root canal treatments on patients prior to graduation than allowing students with limited clinical experience to perform difficult root canal treatments on patients (Baaij et al. 2020). Difficult root canal treatments may evoke a negative experience that may decrease one’s self-efficacy, especially in the early phase of building it (Bandura 1977, Tanalp et al. 2013). Performing a retreatment in the year following graduation was, however, not negatively associated with the change in self-efficacy (Table 3). Participants who performed retreatments following graduation performed high numbers of primary root canal treatments as well (Spearman’s rho = 0.80, p < .001). Self-efficacy is usually higher when experience accumulates, and then the impact of a negative experience on one’s self-efficacy diminishes; the number of positive experiences will probably outgrow the number of negative ones (Bandura 1977). Besides, an increase in self-efficacy may lead to an improvement in performance (Gist & Mitchell 1992). Undertaking more challenging tasks at this stage may be less prone to cause negative experiences and may even contribute to a positive professional development (Bandura & Schunk 1981). This might explain the noteworthy finding that some of the participants who did not have experience with performing retreatments prior to graduation did manage to perform retreatments after graduation. They may gradually have pushed their goals. The duration of undergraduate dental education in Denmark is 5 years, whereas it is 6 years in the Netherlands. In Denmark, dental graduates are not allowed to own a private practice before they have had 1 year full-time employment, including both private and public practice. That implies that they have access to support from a more experienced colleague during their first year of transition. In the Netherlands, however, newly graduated dentists can immediately obtain authorization to practice dentistry independently. It is nevertheless common for novice dentists in the Netherlands to start working in group practices with other dentists. One would assume that the availability of a colleague who could offer help when it is needed would give more confidence to the novice dentist, and would be positively associated with the change in self-efficacy. Although the Annemarie Baaij.indd 87 28-06-2023 12:26