Abstract
This article was migrated. The article was marked as recommended. Purpose: to assess students' perception of educational environment and to evaluate the difference in perception related to academic performance and demographic characteristics in the Faculty of Medicine, University of Khartoum, 2020. Method: The authors performed an observational analytical cross-sectional study at the Faculty of Medicine, University of Khartoum, using a validated structured closed-ended self -administered questionnaire; the Dundee Ready Educational environment measurement (DREEM). They included all students registered in the faculty for the academic year 2020-2021 except the first semester students. They used proportionate stratified sampling to divide students into strata and sub-strata based on batch number and sex, respectively. Then, they selected students proportionately from each substrata using simple random sampling. Results: out of 405 randomly selected students, 341 (84.2%) filled the questionnaire. The mean total DREEM score was (104.48/200), indicating a positive perception of the learning environment. This, with only student's perception of atmosphere subscale showing negative results. Test results showed a significant difference between different student's age groups, academic phases and batches in regards to their perception of atmosphere (p-value 0.023, 0.001, 0.013 respectively). Regarding residence, a significant difference was found in total DREEM scores, with students residing in university dormitories having a more positive perception. Test results showed no significant difference in student's perception of educational environment in all DREEM subscales between achievers and underachievers. Conclusion: although the overall perception of educational environment was more positive than negative, the study highlighted various areas needing special attention. Theauthors believe that both faculty administration and students must work together to deliver tangible improvement in all aspects of educational environment.
Highlights
For medical students, the term "educational environment" indicates all the physical conditions - including lecture rooms, laboratories, hospital wards, out-patient clinics, curricular contents (Dunne, McAleer and Roff, 2006)- social and intellectual conditions, forces and external factors represented by teaching staff and their general practice and attitude inside the class in addition to the methods they use to deliver learning materials to students (Miles et al, 2012)
In terms of age and academic level, the results showed a pattern of decreasing mean scores as students progress in age and by default academic level or phase that is consistent with the findings of another study from India that assumed that students become more critical to the educational environment with time (Walankar et al, 2019)
The study managed to draw a clear picture of how medical students at the University of Khartoum view their educational environment
Summary
The term "educational environment" indicates all the physical conditions - including lecture rooms, laboratories, hospital wards, out-patient clinics, curricular contents (Dunne, McAleer and Roff, 2006)- social and intellectual conditions, forces and external factors represented by teaching staff and their general practice and attitude inside the class in addition to the methods they use to deliver learning materials to students (Miles et al, 2012). It has been suggested that success of an effectual curriculum along with students’ academic progress strongly relies on the educational environment of a particular medical school (Naik and Singh, 2017). This in addition to earlier studies affirming that encouraging learning environment; along with a positive institutional profile are major determinants of the students’ desire and motivation to learn; with the greatest impact on increasing satisfaction with the course of study, achievement and success of medical students as well as incentivizing sense of well-being. Evidence exists for the fact that students' levels of psychological distress are greatly influenced by their learning environment (Enns et al, 2016)
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