Medical Students’ Perception of Their Educational Environment
Background: Students’ perception of the environment within which they study has shown to have a significant impact on their behavior, academic progress and sense of well-being. This study was undertaken to evaluate the students’ perception of their learning environment in an Indian medical schoo...
| Main Authors: | , , , , |
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
JCDR Research and Publications Private Limited
2014-01-01
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| Series: | Journal of Clinical and Diagnostic Research |
| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | https://jcdr.net/articles/PDF/3944/30-5559_E(C)_F(T)_PF1(MH)_PFA(NC).pdf |
| Summary: | Background: Students’ perception of the environment within
which they study has shown to have a significant impact on
their behavior, academic progress and sense of well-being. This
study was undertaken to evaluate the students’ perception of
their learning environment in an Indian medical school following
traditional curricula and to study differences, if any, between the
students according to the stages of medical education, i.e., the
pre-clinical and clinical stages.
Methodology: In the present study, the Dundee Ready Education
Environment Measure (DREEM) inventory was administered to
undergraduate medical students of first (n = 227), third (n = 175),
fifth (n = 171) and seventh (n = 123) semesters. Scores obtained
were expressed as mean ± Standard Deviation (SD) and analyzed
using one-way ANOVA and Dunnett’s test. P-value < 0.05 was
considered as significant.
Results: The mean DREEM score for our medical school was
123/200.The first-year students were found to be more satisfied
with learning environment (indicated by their higher DREEM
score) compared to other semester students. Progressive
decline in scores with each successive semester was observed.
Evaluating the sub-domains of perception, the registrars in all
semesters had a more positive perception of learning (Average
mean score: 29.44), their perception of course organizers moved
in the right direction (Average mean score: 26.86), their academic
self-perception was more on the positive side (Average mean
score: 20.14), they had a more positive perception of atmosphere
(Average mean score: 29.07) and their social self-perception
could be graded as not too bad (Average mean score: 17.02).
Conclusion: The present study revealed that all the groups of
students perceived their learning environment positively. However,
a few problematic areas of learning environment were perceived
such as: students were stressed more often; they felt that the
course organizers were authoritarian and emphasized factual
learning. Implementing more problem-based learning, student
counseling and workshops on teaching-learning for educators
might enable us to remedy and enrich our learning environment. |
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| ISSN: | 2249-782X 0973-709X |