MedEdPublish (Oct 2020)
Comparison of Dundee Ready Educational Environment Measure with An abridged version at a Dental School
Abstract
Background: educational environment refers to a group of factors that have an impact on students' performance. Measuring these factors help redesign curricula, instructional methods and impact teacher and student performance. The 50 item Dundee Ready Educational Environment Measure is a widely used tool for measuring the educational environment. An abridged version of DREEM was recently postulated with 12 items (DREEM-12) derived from DREEM. Aim: to measure the educational environment as perceived by third year Dental School PBL students at the Libyan International Medical University and comparing the scores of DREEM with the 12-item version. Methodology: DREEM questionnaire was administered anonymously through Goggle Forms to all third-year dental students at the Dental School of the Libyan International Medical University, Benghazi, Libya. Data for the 12-item version were extracted from responses to DREEM and the results were compared. Results: All third year students participated in the study n=59). 58 responses were eligible for analysis. Mean score for DREEM and its abridged version were 127.5±24.5 and 32.9±7 respectively. The correlation between the total scores of the two versions was highly significant(r= 0.935, P<0.01). 83% of items of DREEM have mean scores ranging between two and three. Gender didn't affect any of the items, domains or total scores of both versions. Conclusion: Both versions reached to the same conclusion i.e. the educational environment in the studied setting is perceived by students more positively than negatively, and that the correlation between the two questionnaires is highly significant. However, most of the items need to be improved. Further studies are needed to determine whether the tested abridged version is performing comparably to the regular one in similar settings.
