Students’ perception of educational environment based on Dundee Ready Education Environment Measure and the role of peer mentoring: a cross-sectional study

Abstract

Objective The curricular reform at Tehran University of Medical Sciences (TUMS), Iran, has been implemented since 2011 when peer mentoring program started. The program is believed to have a crucial role in students’ perception of the educational environment (EE). We aimed to determine how students perceive the educational environment and compared the mentees and non-mentees’ perception of EE. Methods A cross-sectional descriptive study was conducted among 190 first-year medical students enrolling at Tehran University of Medical Sciences from March to September 2019. A questionnaire was used to collect information on students’ age, gender, marital status, dormitory status, and their mentoring status including satisfaction of mentor-mentee relationship. The study also employed Dundee Ready Education Environment Measure (DREEM). The collected data were then entered and analysed using SPSS version 20. To compare the perception of EE between mentees and non-mentees, we used independent t-test. Results The mean (SD) for total DREEM score for EE was 144.1 (19.3), which signifies a more positive than negative educational environment perception. Nonetheless, the mean scores of total DREEM was not significantly different between students with or without mentors (P =0.390). The overall mean score for student perceptions of learning for mentees was 32.47 (4.5) while for those without a mentor, the score was 31.70 (4.9) (P =0.491). The items concerned with “emphasizing factual learning” and “teacher-based teaching” were rated the least. The item “having an appropriate support system” was scored significantly different between students with or without mentors (P =0.009). Conclusions Since having an appropriate support system was significantly different between groups, we suggest curriculum designers focus on the above-mentioned issue under caption for improvement during the reform programs.

A Systematic Review of Publications Using the Dundee Ready Education Environment Measure (DREEM) to Monitor Education in Medical Colleges in Saudi Arabia

“…This result agrees with most studies conducted in different health specialties in different countries [17][18][27][28]30]. Recently, Serrano et al [75] assessed the educational environments in dental colleges in the Netherlands, and Behkam et al [24] investigated medical colleges at the Dundee University Medical School; both studies recorded slightly higher DREEM scores than the scores in the current review. Another study, performed by Hernández-Crespo et al [17] in Spain, indicated that the overall DREEM score of the educational environment among dental colleges students was "more positive than negative" in different academic years of 2010-2011, 2013-2014, 2014-2015, and 2015-2016.…”

“…After 2020, 40%, 20%, and 16% of publications were for dental colleges, applied medical science colleges, and medical colleges, respectively; these values were considerably lower compared with the percentage of articles published before 2020. Other systematic reviews by Behkam et al [24] and Farooqi et al [27] arrived at the same conclusions. Miles et al [15] used studies before 2010, and their review is in parallel with the percentage of studies in the current paper, as presented in Table 3 and Figure 2.…”

“…DREEM was developed by a Delphi panel, and it has been used to highlight the weaknesses and strengths of educational environments in dental colleges, medical colleges, and applied medical science colleges. It has also been translated and copied to many languages, such as Turkish, Romanian, Spanish, Greek, Urdu, and Arabic [16][17][18][19][20][21][22][23][24][25][26]. Table 2 shows how to interpret the overall DREEM score and its 5 domains.…”

The PBL teaching method in Neurology Education in the Traditional Chinese Medicine undergraduate students: An Observational Study

“…Items with mean scores of less than two should be closely considered. Except for negative items mentioned, a higher score means better interpretation [17, 18].…”

The PBL teaching method in Neurology Education in the Traditional Chinese Medicine undergraduate students: An Observational Study

“…Items with mean scores of less than two should be closely considered. Except for negative items mentioned, a higher score means better interpretation [17,18].…”