Inter-relationships between perception of educational environment and learning processes within medical undergraduate psychiatry teaching: a mediational analysis

ABSTRACT

Amongst medical undergraduates, the perception of educational environment (EE) has been associated with academic achievement and positive attitude toward the course. Nonetheless, there are sparse data on how it influences various learning processes and outcomes especially within psychiatry training. Consistent with situativity and self-determination learning theories, we hypothesized that a positive perception of the EE within psychiatry postings will be beneficial for the learning process, specifically pertaining to greater motivation to learn, better engagement, allowing them to feel more equipped, and greater appreciation of the subject. The DREEM (Dundee Ready Education Environment Measure) was administered to fourth-year medical undergraduate students from the Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine, Singapore, undergoing psychiatry rotations from 2015 to 2019. The students also completed five additional items evaluating the specific learning processes (motivation to learn, engagement, equipping, and appreciation of the subject) and overall rating of the posting. We examined the relationship between DREEM domains and learning processes using correlation analysis. We explored learning processes as mediators of the relationship between total DREEM scores and overall rating of the posting. Altogether, 1343 (response rate 89.5%) medical undergraduates participated in the study. The overall DREEM score was 157.01 ± 15.86. Overall DREEM and subdomain scores were significantly correlated with several learning processes (r = 0.354 to 0.558, all p < .001). Motivation and engagement were significant mediators of the relationship between total DREEM scores and overall rating of the psychiatry posting. Our results highlighted that a positive perception of EE was associated with the specific learning processes that mediated the overall rating of the posting. In the context of relevant learning theories and our study findings, improvement of the EE within undergraduate psychiatry training can potentially enhance overall learning experience through better motivation and engagement of our learners.

KEYWORDS:

• Educational environment
• motivation to learn
• engagement
• learning outcomes
• medical education
• psychiatry

Ethics approval and consent to participate

The study was approved as an exempt study by the Institutional Review Board of the National Healthcare Group, Singapore (NHG DSRB Ref: 2014/00422). Surveys were anonymized and informed consent was not required by the Institutional Review Board.

Data availability statement

The datasets used and/or analysed during the current study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Authors’ contributions

All co-authors have made substantial contributions to conception and design or analysis and interpretation of data, made substantial contributions to drafting the article or revising it critically for important intellectual content; and the manuscript has also been read and approved by all co-authors.

Acknowledgments

Not applicable.

Additional information

Funding

This research did not receive any specific grant from funding agencies in the public, commercial, or not-for-profit sectors.