Original Article

Evaluating the Quality of the Educational Environment for Medical Interns in an Emergency Department Using the DREEM Inventory

Abstract

Moving toward establishing more student center educational environment to meet the ever-changing learning expectations in a challenging climate like emergency department for under graduates is an intimidating task. In our newly founded academic emergency department, every step toward scoring as a dynamic and modern educational environment for both undergraduates and postgraduates would be a great success. The last 18 months of undergraduate medical education in Iran is considered as an internship. Interns have two months mandatory emergency department rotation during that period. This study has design to evaluate the medical students' conception about the educational environment using the Dundee Ready Education Environment Measure (DREEM) questionnaire. 156 undergraduate interns during their two months emergency medicine rotation from October 2009 to March 2010 enrolled into a cross sectional observational study to anonymously fill up the DREEM questionnaire  on the last week of the course. The overall mean score of DREEM questionnaire was 134.79 out of 200 for the emergency department.  The mean scores are 135.37 in female (n=87) group and 131.56 in male (n=69) group.  There was not any significant difference between two genders (P>0.05). A score of 134.79 is compatible with the modern universities. Scores of 100 or less indicate serious problems and scores above 170 is compatible with ultimate student centered and modern educational environment. Such an achievement in the start of the new installed Emergency Medicine program is admirable, hence great effort must be put to pinpoint problems and fix them. DREEM questionnaire helped us moving toward a more student center environment in the emergency department.

Roff S. New resources for measuring educational environment. Med Teach 2005;27(4):291-3.

Roff S, Mcaleer S. What is educational climate? Med Teach 2001;23(4);333-4.

Till H. Climate studies: can students' perceptions of the ideal educational environment be of use for institutional planning and resource utilization? Med Teach 2005;27(4):332-7.

Harden RM, Sowden S, Dunn WR. Educational strategies in curriculum development: the SPICES model. Med Educ 1984;18(4):284-97.

Pimprayon P, Caleer SM, Pemba S, et al. Educational environment, student approaches to learning and academic achievement in a Thai nursing school. Med Teach 2000;22(4);359-64.

Roff S. The Dundee Ready Education Environment Measure (DREEM)‐‐a generic instrument for measuring students’ perceptions of undergraduate health professions curricula. Med Teach 2005;27(4):322-5.

Edgren G, Haffling AC, Jakobsson U, et al. Comparing the educational environment (as measured by DREEM) at two deferent stages of curriculum reform. Med Teach 2010;32(6):e233-8.

Avalos G, Freeman C, Dunne F. Determining the quality of medical educational environment at an Irish medical school using the DREEM inventory. Ir Med J 2007;100(7):522-5.

Demiroren M, Palaoglu O, Kemahli S, et al. Perceptions of student in different phase of medical educations of educational environment: Ankara University Faculty of Medicine. Med Educ Online 2008;13(1):8.

Bouhaimed M, Thalib L, Doi SA. Perception of the educational environment by medical students undergoing a curricular transition in Kuwait. Med Prince Pract 2009;18(3):204-8.

Aghamolaei T, Fazel I. Medical student’s perception of educational environment at an Iranian medical science university. BMC Med Educ. 2010;10(1):87.

Soltani Arabshahi K, Kouhpayezade J, Sobuti B. The educational environment of main clinical wards in educational hospitals affiliated to Iran University of Medical Sciences: Learners' viewpoints based on DREEM model. Iran J Med Educ 2008;8(1):43-50.

Varma R, Tiyagi E, Gupta JK. Determining the educational climate across multiple under graduation teaching sites using the DREEM inventory. BMC Med Educ 2005;5(1):8.

Jiffry MTM, McAleer S, Fernando S, et al. Using the DREEM questioner to gather baseline information on an evolving medical school in Sri Lanka. Med Teach 2005;27(4):348-52.

Files
IssueVol 52, No 8 (2014) QRcode
SectionOriginal Article(s)
Keywords
Emergency medicine DREEM Undergraduates Medical student

Rights and permissions
Creative Commons License This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.
How to Cite
1.
Farahmand S, Bagheri-Hariri S, Moghanloo S, Basir Ghafouri H, Saeedi M, Afzalimoghadam M, Gao Y. Evaluating the Quality of the Educational Environment for Medical Interns in an Emergency Department Using the DREEM Inventory. Acta Med Iran. 1;52(8):631-637.