Abstract:

The educational climate (EC) refers to the various contexts and situations in which students learn concepts and acquire skills and competences. In this sense, it also includes the way that students interact with their peers, as well as the ways by which both students and teachers can stablish an educational environment that facilitates learning.

Objective:
To identify critical aspects of EC at Medical School, as a basis for introducing optimization measures.

Methods: The DREEM (Dundee Ready Educational Environment Measure) opinion poll model was used as a measuring instrument. It consists of 50 items, grouped in five specific areas of perception:
i) teaching,
ii) teachers,
iii) learning,
iv) educational environment and
v) social environment.

Each item is assessed on a scale from 1 to 4 (maximum possible score: 200 points, equivalent to 100%). A survey was conducted using the DREEM questionnaire at the School of Medicine of the Complutense University of Madrid, during the academic year 2018-2019.

Results:
The overall average score of all students reflected a positive EC. The 5 areas of perception were then analyzed and a higher score was observed in the pre-clinical years as compared to the clinical ones, with significant differences in the learning and teaching areas. When the questions and answers were analyzed in these groups, the highest score was obtained in the teaching ability of the teachers (> 3.5), with a tendency to decrease in the higher courses. Scores obtained in class preparation and student feedback were higher in preclinical courses (p < 0.001). A similar result was observed in the learning area (p < 0.001). Also, in both cases, significant differences between different groups of students were observed (p < 0.001).

Conclusions:
Although preliminary, these results showed trends such as the fact that the EC seemed to be better in the preclinical courses than in the clinical ones and reflected the differences between groups of students, providing information on where to propose improvement measures.

Keywords:

educational environment, educational climate.