Katherine Miles1, Abdel-Ellah Al-Shudifat1, Mustafa Saad Yousuf1.
Abstract
INTRODUCTION: The Dundee Ready Educational Environment Measure (DREEM) is a valid instrument to evaluate the educational environment of institutions. This quantitative study aimed to discover if applying interactive educational approaches to a component of a traditionally taught medical curriculum improved the educational environment, as measured by the DREEM.
METHODS: The bilingual Arabic-English DREEM questionnaire was distributed twice to all third-year medical students (273 students) at the Hashemite University in Jordan. The first data collection occurred at the completion of a traditionally taught component of the Neurology module and the second data collection at the end of an interactively taught component of the same module. A paired t-test was used to compare the results.
RESULTS: The total DREEM score for the innovative interactive course was 120.04/200 (from 183 questionnaires) and for the traditionally taught course was 114.69/200 (from 198 questionnaires). Of the five DREEM sub-scales, the interactive course scored statistically significantly higher than the traditionally taught course for "perceptions of learning" and "perceptions of atmosphere" (p-value 0.013 and 0.011, respectively). The interactively taught course was particularly valued by students for being participative, student-centered, and developing their professional competence. The lowest scoring item for both courses was "there is a good support system for students who get stressed." DISCUSSION: This study demonstrated that students value interactive learning environments and that there is benefit in introducing these components to a traditionally taught medical curriculum, when it may not be feasible to bring innovation to the entire medical curriculum due to resource constraints. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s40670-021-01359-y. © International Association of Medical Science Educators 2021.
INTRODUCTION: The Dundee Ready Educational Environment Measure (DREEM) is a valid instrument to evaluate the educational environment of institutions. This quantitative study aimed to discover if applying interactive educational approaches to a component of a traditionally taught medical curriculum improved the educational environment, as measured by the DREEM.
METHODS: The bilingual Arabic-English DREEM questionnaire was distributed twice to all third-year medical students (273 students) at the Hashemite University in Jordan. The first data collection occurred at the completion of a traditionally taught component of the Neurology module and the second data collection at the end of an interactively taught component of the same module. A paired t-test was used to compare the results.
RESULTS: The total DREEM score for the innovative interactive course was 120.04/200 (from 183 questionnaires) and for the traditionally taught course was 114.69/200 (from 198 questionnaires). Of the five DREEM sub-scales, the interactive course scored statistically significantly higher than the traditionally taught course for "perceptions of learning" and "perceptions of atmosphere" (p-value 0.013 and 0.011, respectively). The interactively taught course was particularly valued by students for being participative, student-centered, and developing their professional competence. The lowest scoring item for both courses was "there is a good support system for students who get stressed." DISCUSSION: This study demonstrated that students value interactive learning environments and that there is benefit in introducing these components to a traditionally taught medical curriculum, when it may not be feasible to bring innovation to the entire medical curriculum due to resource constraints. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s40670-021-01359-y. © International Association of Medical Science Educators 2021.
Entities:
Keywords:
DREEM questionnaire; Educational environment; Medical education; Student perceptions
Year: 2021
PMID： 34603840 PMCID： PMC8446114 DOI： 10.1007/s40670-021-01359-y
Source DB: PubMed Journal: Med Sci Educ ISSN： 2156-8650