The Effect of Family Medicine Programs' Educational Environment on Post graduate Medical Students’ Learning Perceptions, in Egypt

Document Type : Original Article

Abstract

BACKGROUND: The quality of the Educational environment is a key determinant of a student centered curriculum. One of most widely used contemporary tools for evaluation of the learning environment is the Dundee Ready Education Environment Measure (DREEM).
The OBJECTIVE is to compare the quality of the educational environment as perceived by postgraduate medical students training in three different settings so that corrective measures could be taken to enhance students learning experiences. METHODS: This study used qualitative analysis with DREEM questionnaire, to evaluate the educational environment during post graduate medical students’ training in the three different settings. The questionnaire was administered to 135 postgraduate medical students from three different Family Medicine programs in Cairo. Fifty six (56) were registered for Egyptian Board Membership, 61 for Professional Diploma, and remaining 18 students were registered for academic degree in Family Medicine department at Cairo University. Those are all postgraduate students registered for the academic year 2013/2014. RESULTS: The overall total DREEM mean score for the three groups was 120.5/200 (60.3%).The highest DREEM mean score was found to be 124.8/200 (62.4%) for the Egyptian Board Membership group followed by 119.1/200 (59.6%) for Diploma group, then 114.1/200 (57.1%) for Academic degree postgraduate students. When comparing the five subscales of the three groups; greatest variation between groups was noticed in the Students' Perception of learning and Atmosphere subscales, (P value= .002 and <0.001 respectively).
CONCLUSIONS: There is undeniable need for improvement of educational environment in particular areas of some of family medicine postgraduate courses.

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