Students’ Perception of Educational Environment in an Indian Medical School Using DREEM Inventory.

ABSTRACT

Introduction: Students’ perception of the environment within which they study has been shown to have a significant impact on their behaviour, academic progress and sense of well-being. The study, by way of student perceptions recorded on the Dundee Ready Educational Environment Measure (DREEM) inventory, reveals the strength & weakness of educational environment at our institute. This understanding can be aided for refining the learning environment. Method: Perceptions of students recorded by DREEM inventory anon-ymously and mean global scores and domain scores were expressed as mean + standard deviation (SD). Result was recorded gender wise and the difference in the result of male and female compared using rank sum test to see if the difference between the perception is significant or not. Result: Students’ Perceptions of Learning The mean domain score was 31.40/48 (SD 4.63) Students’ Perceptions of Teachers The grouped mean SPT score was 28.24 /44 (SD 4.63) Students’ academic self-Perceptions The grouped mean score was 22.05 /32 (SD 4.9) Students’ Perceptions of Atmosphere The grouped mean score was 31.30/48 (SD 5.5) Students’ Social Self-Perceptions The grouped mean SSP score was 17.70/28 (SD 3.9). Female students indicated a more pos-itive perception of their environment than did males on almost all aspects. Conclusion: Study using DREEM inventory revealed problematic areas of learning environment in our medical school, which help us in de-ciding priority areas for reform of educational environment.