Perceptions of the educational environment among undergraduate physical therapy students in a competency-based curriculum at the University of Chile

Abstract

Purpose: This study aimed to assess the educational environment (EE) among students in a physical therapy undergraduate program, to identify patterns in EE perceptions among the students by year, and to determine issues that should be addressed.Methods: The Dundee Ready Education Environment Measure (DREEM) questionnaire was used to explore the relationships among the total mean score, subscales, and items in a competency-based curriculum in the physical therapy program at the University of Chile. The DREEM questionnaire was filled out by 166 of 244 students (68.03%), of whom 56.6% were men and 43.4% were women, with 75.9% between 19 and 23 years of age.Results: The total mean score (120.9/200) indicated that the EE was perceived as ‘more positive than negative.’ There were significant differences (P<0.05) between first-year students (113.41), who reported the lowest total mean score, and fourth-year students (126.60), who had the highest total mean score. Students rated their EE favorably on each subscale except social self-perceptions, which second-year students rated as ‘not too bad,’ and for which first-, third-, and fourth-year students gave a rating corresponding to ‘not a nice place.’ On the perceptions of teachers subscale, there were significant differences (P<0.05) between first-year students (28.05/44) and fourth-year students (32.24/44) and between second-year students (28.72/44) and fourth-year students (32.24/44). On the academic self-perceptions subscale, there were significant differences (P<0.05) between first-year students (18.12/32) and second-year (21.68/32), third-year (22.33/32), and fourth-year students (21.87/32).Conclusion: Physical therapy students at the University of Chile had positive perceptions of their EE. First-year students rated the largest number of items as problematic. Improvements are required across the program in the specific subscales mentioned above.

Perception of clinical educational environment by student of physiotherapy based on the Postgraduate Hospital Educational Environment Measurement Questionnaire in Chile

“…The global score could be due to recent curricular modification by the career that deepens the educational model of the institution centered on the student, seeking to prepare it to achieve an autonomous role of the profession gradually by facilitating the sense of identity, generation of habits, and norms that specify the institutional culture based on the values of professional ethics, civic responsibility, and community commitment. In any case, Quiroga-Maraboli et al [15] recommends complementing the findings of the different questionnaires that evaluates the perceptions of the educational environment with a qualitative study to explore the current context and to propose potential solutions to the problematic subscales or each element.…”

Perspective of educational environment on students’ perception of teaching and learning

“…After many more studies, this tool was further validated as a 50-item version. The DREEM is presently the most-popular questionnaire for evaluating the educational environment in undergraduate education programs (Quiroga-Marabolí et al, 2019;Sengupta et al, 2017). It has been translated into many languages and is useful for comparing the educational environment of medical schools at different locations.…”

Percepção do ambiente educacional por alunos de uma universidade pública do Nordeste brasileiro

“…Foi utilizado o instrumento DREEM, validado em português por Oliveira Filho 13 , composto por 50 questões fechadas pontuadas numa escala Likert de cinco pontos: 0 = discorda fortemente; 1 = discorda; 2 = não tem certeza; 3 = concorda; 4 = concorda fortemente. Como os itens 4,8,9,17,25,35,39, 48 e 50 são considerados negativos, eles, no momento do cálculo da pontuação, tiveram a escala invertida: 0 = concorda fortemente; 1 = concorda; 2 = não tem certeza; 3 = discorda; 4 = discorda fortemente 14 . Cada questão faz parte de um dos cinco domínios: aprendizado (12 questões); professores (11 questões); acadêmico (oito questões); atmosfera (12 questões) e social (sete questões) 12 .…”

“…A percepção do ambiente educacional pelos estudantes de distintos cursos de graduação em ciências da saúde é diferente, tendo em vista que há particularidades entre os currículos e docentes de cada curso e as vivências a cada estágio da graduação [6][7][8][9][10] . Ressalta-se ainda que estudos recentes já observaram associações da avaliação do ambiente educacional com alguns fatores e características dos discentes, tais como: resiliência, postura perante a matéria de estudo, qualidade de vida e níveis de estresse 11 .…”