Ready Education Environment Measure Research Articles

Medical Students’ Perception of Learning Environment in New Campus of University Malaysia Sarawak (UNIMAS): Measured by DREEM

Background: The ultimate goal of the medical education is to produce the competent and qualified medical professionals. One essential component of medical education is to provide a good learning environment. The assessment of learning environment has been determined as a key instrument for the delivery of high quality and effective education and curriculum. Objective of this study: It is to evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of learning environment in new campus of medical faculty in Kotasamarahan. Methods: It was a cross-sectional, questionnaire based study and ninety year-two medical students were recruited for the study. Dundee Ready Education Environment Measure (DREEM) questionnaire was used to collect the data. Results: The total score of DREEM was 124.05 / 200 and scores of all subdomains indicate ‘More positive than negative’ however there are items, 3,4,9,14,17,25,27 and 48 scored <2 which need improvements to be made to further enhance the quality of learning environment in new medical faculty of UNIMAS. Conclusion: This study can be used as a pivoting point to help produce more competent medical graduates in the future with the implementation of an efficient learning environment

‘Blended learning’ as an effective teaching and learning strategy in clinical medicine: a comparative cross-sectional university-based study

Abstract Objective Blended learning is a relatively new technology-based teaching approach. Few attempts have been made to use this approach in medical education. The aim of this study was to assess the effectiveness of blended learning in studying family medicine as an example of a clinical medical science. Methods This comparative cross-sectional study involved 121 fourth-year medical students, at the clinical phase of a family medicine course at the College of Medicine, Taibah University, Almadinah Almunawwarah, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. The students were randomly divided into two groups: 61 taught by the traditional approach (face-to-face) and 60 taught by blended learning (both electronic and face-to-face). The effect of blended learning was evaluated from responses to the Dundee ‘ready education environment measure’ questionnaire. Clinical skills were assessed with the ‘objective structured clinical examination’; knowledge gain was assessed from a written multiple-choice examination; and problem-solving, critical thinking, decision-making skills and attitude were assessed in written and oral examinations based on clinical scenarios. Results Blended learning was statistically significantly better than traditional learning in all domains of the educational environment, except for social perception, and in all types of examination: written, objective structured clinical and case scenarios. Conclusion The findings suggest that medical students, as adult learners, are open to new methods of learning. The blended learning approach is an effective method for teaching family medicine and may be applicable to other clinical medical sciences.