Perception about Educational Environment of First Year Dental Students: Expected verses Actual Perception

Objectives: To evaluate the magnitude of difference between students Actual and Expected Perception about their educational environment. To provide an educational environment which is comfortable to students, it is critical to know their perception. Many questionnaire-based studies have been performed to evaluate educational environment in different educational institutes. We used Dundee Ready Educational Environment Measure (DREEM) because it has been used by most of the researchers. The purpose of the study was to reduce gap between ideal and actual environment.
Methods: This prospective study was performed at the College of Dentistry University of Dammam, Saudi Arabia in which first year dental students of academic year 2013-14 were asked about their expectations about the dental college (expected DREEM) and their real life experience (actual DREEM). The two questionnaires were distributed at the start and end of the their academic year and all students were told to keep in mind that they are starting their professional education in a dental school and how they think it will be.
Results: Seventy two percent students completed both part of DREEM survey which was considered as final sample. There were 26(45%) male Students and 32(55%) females who participate in the survey. The total score was 114.47 for expected and 105.5 for actual DREEM out of 200 which shows a positive educational environment. The score for every sub-scale of DREEM along with the overall score was shown in Table 1, representing a positive and constructive environment of institute. There was no significant difference found among male and female student’s perception in any of the 5 subscales for either Expected or Actual DREEM.
Conclusions: Overall, there was small difference between students’ expected and actual DREEM. All domains received positive perception, which showed a healthy educational environment. Some problematic areas were identified, that should be looked into for exact causes. Some of the dental student’s perceptions were not fully fulfilled by the end of the academic year.