Examining nursing students’ perceptions of educational environment: Further validation of DREEM instrument

Background: Educational environment is an essential foundation for the effective learning process of students, which in turn contributes to the success of a curriculum. The evaluation of educational environment from students’ perception has been considered as an indicator for the quality improvement of higher education. This study aimed to explore the Vietnamese nursing students’ perception of educational environment and identify internal consistency reliability of the Vietnamese version of the (Dundee Ready Educational Environment Measure) DREEM instrument. Subjects and methods: A cross-sectional study was conducted among 102 second-year undergraduate nursing students in a medical university. An online survey, including the 50-item DREEM questionnaire, was used to obtain student’s perception of learning environment. Results: The overall Cronbach’s alpha coefficient of the V-DREEM in this study was 0.95 and five sub-scales ranged from 0.74 to 0.85, demonstrating that the V-DREEM instrument has good internal consistency reliability for measurement. The overall score of DREEM was 143.89/200 (SD =17.50), indicating a positive educational environment perceived. Fifty-eight percent (58%) of the items were rated high score, however, there were aspects perceived as problematic including teaching methods (The teaching is too teacher-centered), student-teacher interactions (The students irritate and annoy the teachers), and students’ learning approaches (I feel able to ask the questions I want). Conclusion: The study results suggested the specific areas, including teaching methods, student-teacher interactions, and students’ learning approaches, that need more attention to enhance the educational environment for nursing students in Vietnam where the reform of nursing education has eventuated recently.