Comparing the educational environment (as measured by DREEM) at two different stages of curriculum reform

Figures & data

Table

Practice points

The DREEM is useful for comparing educational climate across schools and programmes. The DREEM can be used to identify problem areas in the education programme. Students’ negative reactions to ongoing curricular reform do not necessarily result in negative changes in perceptions of climate. Educational development aimed at the problem areas can result in improvements that may be detected with the DREEM.

Table 1.  Sum scores on the different subscales by semester (S) and year

	2003			2005
Subscale (maximum score)	S2	S6	S10	S2	S6	S10
Perceptions of learning (48)	35	33	32	35	33	35
Perception of teachers (44)	28*	30*	32	29	30*	33*
Academic self-perceptions (32)	21*	24	23	20	23*	24
Perceptions of atmosphere (48)	37	37	37	37	36	39
Social self-perceptions (28)	20	21	20	21	20	21
Total (200)	141	145	144*	142	142	152*

Note: *statistically significant difference between years 2003 and 2005, respectively.

Table 2.  Mean scores for individual items on all semesters (S) in both years

		2003			2005
		S2	S6	S10	S2	S6	S10
1	I am encouraged to participate in class	3.0	3.1	3.1	3.0	3.2	3.4
2	The teachers are knowledgeable	3.3	3.5	3.2	3.5	3.3	3.5
3	There is a good support system for students who get stressed	1.7*	1.6	1.5	2.1*	1.3	1.7
4	I am too tired to enjoy this course	2.2	2.7	2.7	2.6	2.2	2.7
5	Learning strategies which worked for me before continue to work for me now	2.7	2.9	3.2	2.5	2.5	3.3
6	The teachers are patient with patients	2.4	2.7	3.0	2.5	2.8	3.1
7	The teaching is often stimulating	3.5	3.2	2.6	3.2	3.1	3.1
8	The teachers ridicule the students	3.4	3.1	3.5	3.4	3.2	3.3
9	The teachers are authoritarian	2.5	2.1	3.2	2.3	2.4	2.8
10	I am confident about my passing this year	2.4	3.0	3.0	2.2	2.6	3.0
11	The atmosphere is relaxed during the ward teaching	2.8	2.8	2.7	2.5	2.7	2.9
12	This school is well timetabled	2.6	2.8	2.7	2.7	2.6	3.1
13	The teaching is student centred	2.8	2.6	2.5	2.6	2.5	3.0
14	I am rarely bored on this course	2.7	3.1	1.7*	3.0	2.8	2.5*
15	I have good friends in this school	3.4	3.4	3.2	3.5	3.6	3.5
16	The teaching is sufficiently concerned to develop my competence	3.5	3.4	3.1	3.3	3.2	3.4
17	Cheating is a problem in this school	3.5	3.3	3.6	3.5	3.4	3.5
18	The teachers have good communication skills with patients	2.4	2.8	3.0	2.6	3.0	3.1
19	My social life is good	3.4	3.4	3.4	3.4	3.5	3.4
20	The teaching is well focused	2.8	3.0	2.7	2.9	3.0	3.0
21	I feel I am being well prepared for my profession	2.9	3.1	2.8	3.0	2.8	3.2
22	The teaching is sufficiently concerned to develop my confidence	2.6	2.7	2.6	2.7	2.6	2.9
23	The atmosphere is relaxed during lectures	3.3	3.5	3.2	3.4	3.3	3.3
24	The teaching time is put to good use	2.7	2.2	1.8*	2.6	2.3	2.2*
25	The teaching over-emphasizes factual learning	2.3	2.5	2.7	2.5	2.4	2.8
26	Last year's work has been a good preparation for this year's work	2.1	3.3	2.8	2.6	3.3	2.7
27	I am able to memorize all I need	2.1	2.3	2.2	2.2	2.1	2.1
28	I seldom feel lonely	2.9	3.2	3.1	3.1	2.9	3.4
29	The teachers are good at providing feedback to students	1.8	2.0	2.0	1.8	2.1	2.3
30	There are opportunities for me to develop interpersonal skills	3.2	3.4	3.3	2.9	3.4	3.5
31	I have learned a lot about empathy in my profession	2.7	2.9	2.7	2.1	2.9	2.9
32	The teachers provide constructive criticism here	1.4**	1.9**	2.0*,**	1.4**	2.1**	2.4*
33	I feel comfortable in class socially	3.3	3.3	3.4	3.5	3.5	3.6
34	The atmosphere is relaxed during seminars/tutorials	3.2	3.2	3.4	3.4	3.4	3.4
35	I find the experience disappointing	3.1	3.0	2.8	3.3	2.8	3.1
36	I am able to concentrate well	2.7	2.8	2.9	2.8	2.7	2.8
37	The teachers give clear examples	2.8	2.7	2.9	2.8	2.7	3.1
38	I am clear about the learning objectives of the course	3.0	2.7	2.5	3.1	2.3	2.7
39	The teachers get angry in class	3.6	3.4	3.7	3.6	3.4	3.6
40	The teachers are well prepared for their classes	3.0	2.9	3.0	3.0	2.8	3.0
41	My problem solving skills are being well developed here	2.6	3.0	2.6	2.5	2.9	2.9
42	The enjoyment outweighs the stress of studying medicine	2.9	3.4	3.0	3.1	3.0	3.1
43	The atmosphere motivates me as a learner	2.9	3.0	2.6	2.9	2.8	3.0
44	The teaching encourages me to be an active learner	3.0	2.9	2.7	3.0	2.8	2.9
45	Much of what I have to learn seems relevant to a career in medicine	3.4	3.6	3.4	3.4	3.6	3.5
46	My accommodation is pleasant	3.5	3.6	3.7	3.7	3.8	3.6
47	Long-term learning is emphasized over short term	2.8	2.6	2.9	2.9	2.8	2.7
48	The teaching is too teacher-centred	2.9	2.6	2.8	3.0	2.6	2.7
49	I feel able to ask the questions I want	2.4	2.6	3.2	2.7	2.9	3.1
50	The students irritate the teachers	3.2	2.6	2.9	3.0	2.6	3.0
	Age	22.6	25.6	28.0	24.3	25.5	27.7

Notes: Negative items, where scores have been reversed, are in italics. Item scores that indicate real problems (score 2 or below) are bolded.

*Statistically significant difference between the semesters in the two different years.

**Statistically significant difference between semesters 2 and 6 in 2003 and semesters 6 and 10 in 2005, respectively.

Table 3.  Interventions and other factors that could have contributed to the good scores and to the improvements from 2003 to 2005

Intervention between 2003 and 2005	Contributed to
Improved clinical practice with structured feedback on semester 10	Improvement between years
An introductory course in the first semester to relieve stress	Improvement between years
Faculty development focussing on constructive feedback	Improvement between years
Previous intervention	Contributed to
PBL and the Harvard case method	Overall good results
Other factors
Student representation on deciding boards	Overall good results
A society with equal opportunities for women and men	Small difference between genders