Student ratings of dental hygiene clinical instruction were analyzed to determine dimensions of clinical instruction and the effect of the faculty's teaching philosophy on the underlying components of teaching. A 31-item student evaluation instrument was developed to reflect the teaching philosophy of the Department of Dental Hygiene, University of Maryland. Thirty of the questions dealt with the frequency with which certain teaching behaviors had been observed by students. Using a four-point Likert scale, students completed 682 evaluations over a 3-year period to evaluate 15 instructors. A principal components factor analysis with varimax rotation yielded two factors, accounting for 91.4 percent of the total variation of the data. The first factor, "behaviors influencing the development of critical thinking," contained 18 items. The second factor, entitled "behaviors influencing the development of clinical performance skills", consisted of 12 items. These factors are consistent with the recent adoption by the faculty of an inquiry philosophy of teaching. Factor analysis appeared to support the notion that students value most highly those faculty behaviors that facilitate the development of critical thinking and to a lesser extent those that influence the development of clinical performance skills. A 29-item reference list concludes the document. (SW)