Measuring Students' Perceptions of Educational Environment in the PBL Program of Sharjah Medical College

Abstract

BACKGROUND: Students' perception of their educational environment has a significant impact on their behavior and academic progress. The recent worldwide usage of innovative problem-based learning (PBL) medical programs requires major changes in medical schools and their environments. Therefore, measuring students' perceptions of the complex PBL environment has become a critical necessity as a determinant of students' academic success and as a part of attaining the quality standards of education. Ours being a new medical college employing the PBL curriculum, it was important to measure the students' perception of the educational environment in order to identify the strengths and weaknesses of the curriculum and to plan for any future improvements. AIM AND OBJECTIVES:The aim of this study was to evaluate students' perceptions in the preclinical phase of the PBL educational environment in the College of Medicine, Sharjah Medical College, United Arab Emirates, and to recommend remedial procedures. MATERIAL AND METHODS:In this cross-sectional study, the English version of the Dundee Ready Education Environment Measure (DREEM) inventory was submitted to 250 students in years 1, 2, and 3. The data were analyzed using the SPSS 20 software, and significance was taken at P  0.05. The survey was performed in a mid-semester week, ie, in March 2014. No ethical issues were encountered during the process of this study. RESULTS: Two-hundred and fifty students responded to the questionnaire (100% response rate). The overall DREEM score was 113.4/200 (56.7%). First-year students expressed higher overall significant level of perception (119.4/200) than second-year (107.4/200) and third-year (112.7/200) students. In addition, first-year students perceived their learning, teaching, and academic climates as more significant than the other two batches. The scores obtained in the five domains were as follows; 28/48 in perception of learning, 26/44 in perception of teaching, 18/32 in academic self-perceptions, 27/48 in perceptions of atmosphere, and 15/28 in social self-perceptions. First-year students achieved the highest score (18.7/32) in the academic selfperception, and second-year students achieved the lowest (16.5/32). The total score was significantly higher in female students than in male students (115.9 vs 108.1). CONCLUSIONS:The present study revealed that the PBL environment is generally perceived positively by our medical students. Female students exhibited higher perception than male students. Nevertheless, areas such as curriculum overload and inadequate student support still require further fine-tuning and remedial measures.

Opinions of Final Year and Interns about the EducationalEnviroment and Medical Curriculum At Jazan University

“…The only significant were item # 2 (table 2, and # 5 table # 3), which deal with adequacy and availability of library resources when students need them program has improve students' skills in communication respectively. This were obvious in the results of (15,21,22,24) The response about help and support for learning according to year, resources to support learning according to year (table 4 and Significant of the study materials and adequacy and availability of library resources, this was in agreements with the results of 16,17,19,21,22,23,24. Those demonstrated that graduated founded the needed material at the library each time they needed.…”

“…The results showed no significant different between gender, which was not agreed with the results founded at Sultan ZainalAbidin Medical College, Malyzia by Rahman et al (20) and at Sharjah Medical College, United Arab of Emirates by Nosair et al (22). This differences could be explained by the sample size.…”

Students Experience Survey about the Quality of Learning at Faculty of Medicine, Jazan University

“…Generally the responses about the student support services according to gender, was highly differences between the both gender as shown in (19)(20).About the support services our results showed that, fifth year were satisfied with the support survives in the college campus (table 4). This is in parallel and strongly agreed with the finding of Nosair et al (16). But disagreed with Buhaimed et al (22), those concluded that, they should improve their educational environment in order to advance the quality of the delivered curriculum among their students.Students' perception of their educational environment was positive at both Rabigh and Jeddah campuses of King Abdulaziz University Imran et al (18).…”

Exploring the Perception of the Educational Environment among Health Sciences Students at The University of Rwanda: A Mixed Methods Study

“…First, we computed the descriptive statistics including frequency, mean and standard deviations of the perceptions' scores for individual items, sub-domains and total DREEM. A guide to score interpretation was provided in a similar publication (12).…”

“…Although several studies have explored the strengths and weaknesses of EEs around the world (4,6,(8)(9)(10)(11)(12), there is very limited information relevant to the UR. A recent study (13) explored the perception of the EE in the UR, but it was limited to physiotherapy students only.…”