Background: Happiness, a subjective judgment about one's quality of life, is influenced by environmental factors and should be considered as an important goal of medical education, which should support each learner's development as a person as well as a professional. However, although several studies have reported on the correlation between Dundee Ready Educational Environment Measure (DREEM) scores and students' academic achievement, few have investigated the relationship between DREEM scores and students' subjective happiness. This study examined different perceptions of the educational environment between phases of the curriculum and determined which DREEM subscales affect the overall level of happiness. Methods: We used the Korean version of the DREEM questionnaire and a single item measure of happiness on a scale of 0 to 10. First we analyzed student perceptions of the educational environment according to their demographic characteristics using independent sample t-tests and one-way analysis of variance. A multiple regression analysis was performed to reveal which subscales affect the overall level of happiness while controlling for grade point average (GPA) and other demographic characteristics. Results: The subjects were 239 medical school students across all stages of the curriculum. The students' overall perception was more positive for the educational environment during Phase 3 (clerkship) than Phase 1 (premedical). Among the DREEM subscales, this difference was especially prominent in Students' Perception of Learning and Students' Academic Self-Perceptions. In contrast, no difference in the subjective perception of happiness was found between phases. The effect of GPA on happiness became insignificant under the control of other variables, but the influence of the Students' Social Self-Perceptions (SSSP) subscale remained significant. Conclusions: The students' overall perception of the educational environment was more positive during the clerkship period than in the pre-medical period. Based on our finding that the SSSP correlates significantly with subjective happiness, we suggest that institutions promote not only students' academic development but also their happiness by fostering an appropriate educational environment.

Purpose: This study aims to examine how students' academic performance changed, based on the test results of 16 integrated courses conducted in 3 semesters at Hanyang University College of Medicine that underwent a transition to online learning after COVID-19 in Korea. Methods: For the 16 required courses that included an integrated system-based curriculum that runs for t3 semesters, the major examination's raw scores were collected for each student. Percent-correct scores were used in the subsequent analysis. We used a t-test to compare grades between 2019 and 2020, and Cohen's D was calculated as a measure of effect size. The correlation of scores between courses was calculated using Pearson’s correlation coefficient.Results: There was a significant decrease in scores in 2020 for 10 courses (62.5%). While most of the integrated system-based curriculum test scores showed strong correlation, with a coefficient of 0.6 or higher in both 2019 and 2020, the correlation coefficient was generally higher in 2020. When students were divided into low, middle, and high achiever groups, low achievers consistently showed declining test scores in all three semesters. Conclusion: Our findings suggest that the transition to online classes due to COVID-19 has led to an overall decline in academic performance. This overall decline, which may occur when the curriculum is centered on recorded lectures, needs to be addressed. Further, medical schools need to consider establishing a support system for the academic development of low achievers.

BackgroundNon-English-speaking developing countries in Southeast Asia have been provided only limited opportunities for faculty development in the education of health professions. Although there exist a few programs that have been shown to be effective, they are frequently presented with few explanations on how and why the programs work due to their outcome-oriented nature. This study explores the process of the Lee Jong-Wook Fellowship for Health Professional Education, an international faculty development program designed for capacity building of educators of health professions in Southeast Asian developing countries.MethodsFellows were from Cambodia, Myanmar, and Laos. Qualitative data were collected from two types of semi-structured interviews – group and individual. Thematic analysis was conducted to explore the factors related to the effectiveness of the program, framed by four components of faculty development, which included context, facilitators, program, and participants.ResultsFrom the thematic analysis, the authors identified a total of 12 themes in the four components of faculty development. In the context domain, the resource-poor setting, a culture that puts emphasis on hierarchy and seniority, and educational environment depending on individual commitment rather than broad consensus emerged as key factors. In the facilitators domain, their teaching methods and materials, mutual understanding between teacher and learner, and collaboration between facilitators mainly influenced the learning during the fellowship. In the program domain, the key advantages of the fellowship program were its applicability to the workplace of the fellows and enough allowed time for practice and reflection. Finally, in the participants domain, Fellows valued their heterogeneity of composition and recognized cognitive as well as non-cognitive attributes of the participants as essential.ConclusionsThis process-oriented evaluation reveals the diverse factors that contributed to achieving the intended outcomes of the fellowship. Although much evidence from best practices in faculty development are still valid, the findings suggest that the selection strategies, learning environment, and English communication should be given more consideration when organizing a program targeting these people and cultures. A comprehensive understanding of the process would contribute to developing tailored strategies for educators of health professions in developing countries in similar settings.Electronic supplementary materialThe online version of this article (10.1186/s12909-017-1101-2) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

PurposeThe Mongolian National University of Medical Sciences is the only national university in Mongolia and has produced more than 90% of health professionals in the country. Experts from Mongolia and Korea embarked on a collaborative effort to develop educational programs for faculty development based on the personal and professional needs of faculty members. This study aimed to evaluate the outcomes of those educational programs to determine whether this transnational collaboration was successful.MethodsA needs assessment survey was conducted among 325 faculty members. Based on the results of this survey, the joint expert team developed educational programs on seven core topics: clinical teaching, curriculum development, e-learning, item writing, medical research, organizational culture, and resident selection. Surveys evaluating the satisfaction and the attitudes of the participants were conducted for each program.ResultsThroughout the 17-day program, 16 experts from Korea and 14 faculty members from Mongolia participated as instructors, and a total of 309 participants attended the program. The average satisfaction score was 7.15 out of 8.0, and the attitudes of the participants towards relevant competencies significantly improved after each educational program.ConclusionThe faculty development programs that were developed and implemented as part of this transnational collaboration between Mongolia and Korea are expected to contribute to the further improvement of health professions education in Mongolia. Future studies are needed to evaluate the long-term outcomes of these educational programs.