MEASURING MEDICAL STUDENTS' PERCEPTIONS ABOUT LEARNING ENVIRONMENT USING A LEARNING ENVIRONMENT SCALE

Students' perceptions of their learning environment are a useful basis for modifying and improving the quality of learning environment. The quality of learning environment has been identified to be crucial for effective learning. Identifying the weaknesses of learning environment and understanding how students perceive the environment will help the institutes facilitate learning and achieve better learning outcomes. Objective: Measure medical students' perception regarding learning environment using a learning environment scale Material and Methods: Study Design: A cross-sectional descriptive study Study setting: Study was conducted at Allama Iqbal Medical College, affiliated with University of Health Sciences and associated with Jinnah Hospital Lahore Duration of Study: 3 months Inclusion Criteria: Medical students 1st year-5th year and either gender. Data collection and analysis: Dundee Ready Education Environment Measure (DREEM) inventory was administered to 300 medical students of all years in AIMC adopting purposive sampling. Data Analysis: Data will be entered and analyzed in SPSS Ver: 21. Results: The students' perception of learning environment was found to be more positive. They also considered the overall atmosphere of college comfortable. Nevertheless, study also revealed a lot of room for improvement in subclass of students' perception of atmosphere for pre-clinical students. Conclusions: Remedial measures should be required in the subclasses of students' perception of atmosphere for pre-clinical students for further improvement. Findings from this study may give guidelines to curricular planners and faculties/administrators of medical college for further improvement of learning environment.