Reassessing the educational environment among undergraduate students in a chiropractic training institution: A study over time

Abstract

Objective: The aim of the study was twofold: (1) to compare the perceived educational environment at 2 points in time and (2) to longitudinally examine potential changes in perceptions of the educational environment over time. Methods: The validated Dundee Ready Educational Environment Measure (DREEM), a 50-item, self-administered Likert-type inventory, was used in this prospective study. Employing convenience sampling, undergraduate chiropractic students were investigated at 2 points in time: 2009 (n ¼ 124) and 2012 (n ¼ 127). An analysis of 2 matching samples was performed on 27% (n ¼ 34) of the respondents in 2009. Results: A total of 251 students (79%) completed the inventory, 83% (n ¼ 124) in 2009 and 75% (n ¼ 127) in 2012. The overall DREEM scores in both years were excellent: 156 (78%) and 153 (77%), respectively. The students' perceptions of teachers differed significantly between the 2 cohort years, decreasing from 77% to 73%. Three items received deprived scores: limited support for stressed students, authoritarian teachers, and an overemphasis on factual learning; the latter significantly decreased in 2012. In the longitudinal sample these items also displayed scores below the expected mean. Conclusion: Students viewed the educational environment as excellent both in 2009 and 2012. The perceptions of teachers declined with time; however, this could be attributed to teachers' new roles. Certain aspects of the educational environment factored prominently during the comparative points in time, as well as longitudinally, and these ought to be further investigated and addressed to provide an enhanced educational environment.

Lessons learned: towards a framework for integration of theory and practice in academic development

“…Integration at the organizational level is exemplified by a study in which chiropractic students were interviewed at 3-year intervals about their views on what constitutes a good educational environment (Palmgren, Sundberg, & Laksov, 2015). The study found that the importance of different aspects of the educational environment changed over time, but both at the beginning and towards the end of their education, participation in a community was central for students' learning experience.…”

A qualitative exploration of chiropractic and physiotherapy teachers' experiences and conceptualizations of the educational environment

“…4,13 In the present study, teachers did, in part, acknowledge these aspects as challenges for their respective programs. However, they also rejected some of the students' statements, suggesting that students perhaps did not fully understand the need for factual knowledge and did not understand that facts can be clinically contextualized and that this ''aha!''…”

“…4,12,13 These empirical findings suggest that both these groups have similar judgments of the environment and perceive it as very good, but some aspects of the environment recorded low scores in both the cross-sectional and the longitudinal data, such as limited support for stressed students, teachers being authoritarian, and an overemphasis on factual learning. Moreover, even though a handful of surveybased investigations, apart from ours, have been conducted on these student populations, 4,[13][14][15] to our knowledge there are no existing qualitative explorations of how teachers in these contexts experience the educational environment. Additionally, we have previously qualitatively explored chiropractic students and found that early in the training, the educational environment was experienced as part of a vocational community and the scaffolding of institutional relationships.…”

Developing and validating a tool for measuring the educational environment in clinical anesthesia

“…Deriving a percentage score from a rating scale is a common method for presenting EEM scores. 4,5,[19][20][21][22][23][24] The wider and consistent margins inherent in a 0-100 scale facilitate comparison between different measures or the same measure applied at a different time or place. A requirement for converting from a rating scale to a percentage score is factoring a zero point into the conversion if the lowest value in the original scale is not zero.…”

“…Potential applications of the MATE in the context of anesthesiology training are numerous. In other settings, EEMs have been used to evaluate interventions designed to improve teaching and learning, 25 monitor the impact of curricular change, [26][27][28] longitudinal changes over time and between cohorts, 23 and differences in training locations. 24 In a recent review of a generic postgraduate training EEM, 8/9 studies reported significant differences in overall EEM scores for rural vs urban training locations.…”