Perception of Undergraduate Medical Students on Educational Environment

Abstract

Educational environment in medical school has a significant influence on the students’ progress in becoming a holistic doctor. Different background of students may have different perception towards their educational environment. The objectives of this study were to explore and ascertain the overall educational environment status of two medical programmes in the Faculty of Medicine of Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia (UKM) and to study the common areas of concern in the educational environment. A cross-sectional study was conducted in November 2018 among all the fourth-year undergraduate medical students of session 2018/2019 in the Faculty of Medicine of UKM using the Dundee Ready Education Environment Measure (DREEM) questionnaire. A total of 114 (72.61%) respondents had completed the questionnaire. The mean global score of UKM (136.14) was higher than the mean global score of UKM-Universitas Padjadjaran (UKM-UNPAD) (128.74). UKM also noted to have a higher total mean score for all the five subscales than UKM-UNPAD. The highest percentage score was observed in the subscale of Students’ Perception of Learning (SPoL) for UKM (71.89%) and UKM-UNPAD (68.56%). On the other hand, the lowest percentage score was observed among the UKM (62.57%) and UKM-UNPAD (60.04%) respondents in the subscale of Students’ Social Self-Perception (SSSP). Overall, all students across these two main academic programmes perceived the educational environment in UKM positively. However, there are still aspects of the educational environment that could be improved. The existing programmes and academic modules are subjected to rigorous evaluation to be able to meet the medical students’ requirements.