BackgroundStudents' perceptions of their educational environment have a significant impact on their behavior and academic progress. The aim of this study was to assess the perceptions of medical students concerning their educational environment at Hormozgan University of Medical Sciences in Iran.MethodsIn this cross-sectional study, questionnaires were distributed to 210 medical students and 182 were analyzed (response rate = 86.6%); twenty-eight questionnaires were excluded because they were incomplete or unreturned for analysis. Data were collected using a DREEM questionnaire which comprised 50 items based on the Likert scale (scores could range from 0 to 200). There were five domains to the questionnaire including students' perceptions of learning, students' perceptions of teachers, students' academic self-perceptions, students' perceptions of atmosphere and students' social self-perceptions. Data were analyzed using SPSS16 software.ResultsThe mean age of the subjects was 21.7 years (SD = 2.7); 38.5% were male and 61.5% were female. Students' perceptions of learning, students' perceptions of teachers, students' academic self-perceptions, students' perceptions of atmosphere, students' social self-perceptions and total DREEM score were 21.2/48, 24.2/44, 15.8/32, 23.8/48, 14.5/28 and 99.6/200, respectively. There was no significant difference between male and female students in educational environment subscales, but there were significant differences between students enrolled on a basic sciences and pathophysiology course and those enrolled on a clinical course in terms of perceptions of learning, academic self-perceptions, perceptions of atmosphere and overall perceptions of educational environment (p < 0.05). The latter group rated each of the aforementioned aspects more highly than the students studying basic science and pathophysiology.ConclusionOverall, respondents assessed the educational environment as average. Therefore, improvements are required across all five domains of the educational environment.

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Abstract-The present study aimed at making a comparison between integratively motivated IELTS candidates and their instrumentally motivated peers in terms of their proficiency. Moreover, the cohorts were compared based on their proficiency scores on IELTS Test. The participants were initially 245 Iranian IELTS candidates who had taken the actual IELTS test in Iran; in addition to that, a questionnaire by Laine (1987) was utilized to determine the type of motivation each participant possessed. The data made up two groups of 86 integrative and 110 instrumental candidates. Using the results obtained from the proficiency test, a one-way ANOVA was run. The results indicated there was no statistically significant difference between the two groups with regard to their proficiency. It therefore was concluded that the two cohorts stood at the same level of proficiency. Moreover, the statistical analyses, using one-way ANOVA, revealed there was no significant difference between the integratively oriented participants and instrumentally oriented ones as far as their writing performance exam was concerned.

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