Kye Mon Min Swe¹*, Chan Choong Foong² and Vinod Pallath²

¹Department of Population Medicine, University Tunku Abdul Rahman, Malaysia
²Medical Education and Research Development Unit, University Malaya, Malaysia

*Corresponding Author: Kye Mon Min Swe, Department of Population Medicine, University Tunku Abdul Rahman, Malaysia.

Received: April 11, 2022; Published: May 09, 2022

Abstract

Background: Educational environment of an education institution is where teaching and learning activities occur. Educational environment plays an important role in academic achievements, satisfaction and successes of student and it is a major determinant of developing effective learning.

Aims: The aims of the study were to determine the perceptions of educational environment among all medical students at and to compare these perceptions between pre-clinical and clinical year students.

Settings and Design: This cross-sectional study involved all medical students (from Year 1 to Year 5) of University Tunku Abdul Rahman. Year 1 and Year 2 were pre-clinical years and Year 3 to Year 5 were clinical years.

Methods and Material: Dundee Ready Educational Environment Measure (DREEM) was used to determine the educational environment. Statistical analysis used: SPSS 26 was used to analyse the data. Analysis of variance was used to compare the mean scores of the domains of DREEM.

Results: Two-hundred-and-seven (n = 207) students responded to the questionnaires. Perceptions of medical students on educational environment showed that there were more positive than negative aspects (M = 123.41). Highest rated item was item 2; “The teachers are knowledgeable” (M = 3.43) and lowest rated item was item 27; “I am able to memorize all I need” (M = 1.27). Meanwhile, upon comparison, pre-clinical year students were more satisfied than clinical year students did in all the five domains of DREEM. In addition, social self-perception (Domain 5) in pre-clinical years was significantly greater than clinical years.

Conclusion: This study identified strengths and areas for improvement of the educational environment at UTAR. Strengths should be maintained to continue satisfying learning needs of the medical students. It was recommended that educational environment related with social life of clinical year students should be monitored closely.

Keywords: Educational Environment; DREEM; Perception; Medical Students; Malaysia

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Citation

Citation: Kye Mon Min Swe., et al. “Evaluation of Educational Environment: Perceptions of Preclinical and Clinical Year Medical Students from Malaysia”.Acta Scientific Medical Sciences 6.6 (2022): 85-95.

Copyright

Copyright: © 2022 Kye Mon Min Swe., et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.