STUDENTS' PERCEPTION OF LEARNING ENVIRONMENT USING DUNDEE READY EDUCATION ENVIRONMENT MEASURE (DREEM) INVENTORY

Abstract

Background: Educational Environment is defined as everything that take place in class room, department, college or university and is fundamental in achievement of students' academic success. Understanding the medical student's perception about the education environment has great impact in evaluating deficiencies in exiting medical curriculum, to make comparison between different groups and to make necessary changes accordingly. The objective of our study was to evaluate the perception of under graduate medical students about their learning environment.
Methods: We conducted this cross-sectional study on 131 undergraduate medical students. DREEM Inventory was used to collect the data. DREEM is validated tool and universally used as diagnostic inventory to assess the quality of education environment. Data was collected after taking informed written consent.
Results: Students' perceptions of learning, students' perceptions of teachers, students' academic self-perceptions, students' perceptions of atmosphere, students' social self-perceptions and total DREEM score were 25.4/48, 23.3/44, 17.3/32, 27/48, 14.3/28 and 107.5 /200, respectively. Out of total 50 item, 11 items scored less than 2 which indicate the area of significant problem and these issues need to be addressed on urgent basis.
Conclusion: Over all students assessed education environment as average. There is a need for improvement in all five domains of students' perception.