The Johns Hopkins Learning Environment Scale

Abstract

The JHLES is a new measure to assess students' perceptions of the medical school LE, with supporting validity evidence and content describing the social, relational, and academic processes of medical school that support students' professional formation.

International study of medical school learning environments and their relationship with student well-being and empathy

“…Each item is scored 1‐5 so that JHLES totals can range from 28 to 140, with higher scores indicating a more positive perception of the learning environment. Validity evidence for content, response process, internal structure and relationship to other variables has been described in previous studies …”

“…Perception of the learning environment was assessed using the Johns Hopkins Learning Environment Scale (JHLES). The JHLES was developed over a series of steps from 2010 to 2012 at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine . It has 28 items, each with five‐point response options.…”

“…The Johns Hopkins Learning Environment Scale (JHLES) was recently developed for contemporary medical education settings to ‘capture the richness and variety of each student's relational, academic, and institutional engagement in medical school’. Development of the JHLES was informed by research which showed that discrete events influence perceptions of the learning environment and resulted in a final scale that assessed perceptions across seven distinct factors: (1) Community of Peers, (2) Faculty Relationships, (3) Academic Climate, (4) Meaningful Engagement, (5) Mentorship, (6) Inclusion and Safety and (7) Physical Space . The JHLES has provided meaningful learning environment assessments when administered to students in the USA, Malaysia and Taiwan…”

“…[8][9][10] Medical school learning environments comprise medical students' perceptions of the physical, social and psychological learning contexts and have been defined as 'the student's broadest experience of an academic institution-including the curriculum, the facilities, and interactions with peers, faculty, and staff-as well as the student's sense of the learning climate, or institutional ethos'. 11 Despite widespread concern that medical students' immersion in suboptimal learning environments leads to greater student distress and inhibits professional growth, investigation into how learning environment quality relates to student quality of life and burnout has been limited. 12,13 Two studies found correlations between worse perceptions of the learning environment and well-being but these included only one marker of well-being and focused on assessment of the overall learning environment.…”

Enhancing the Medical School Learning Environment: A Complex Challenge

“…1 The learning environment influences students' professional and identity development, and studies have found that optimized learning environments have positive impacts on humanism, achievement and student learning. 2,3 At the same time, a poor learning environment has been shown to be associated with increased student burnout and distress.…”