Nigerian Physiotherapy Clinical Students’ Perception of their Learning Environment Measured by the Dundee Ready Education Environment Measure Inventory

Abstract

The identification of the learning environment and the understanding of how students learn will help teacher to facilitate learning and plan a curriculum to achieve the learning outcomes. The purpose of this study was to investigate undergraduate physiotherapy clinical students’ perception of University of Ibadan’s learning environment. Using the quantitative research approach, a cross-sectional survey design was used in this study with data collected through the completion of the Dundee Ready Education Environment Measure (DREEM) questionnaire by 54 consenting undergraduate physiotherapy clinical students in the University of Ibadan who have had clinical education for at least one semester. The mean 131/200 indicated that the physiotherapy clinical students’ perceptions of their learning environment were “more positive than negative”. Use of score descriptors for the subscale scores for the DREEM indicated that students' perception of learning was positive, and their perceptions of the teachers were that they were “moving in the right direction”. Their academic self-perception was positive, as was their perception of the atmosphere. The students' social self-perception was “not too bad”. Only six out of the 50 items were reported to have mean scores of less than 2.00, this implies that the items should be examined more closely, as they indicate problem areas. This study has provided useful information on student perceptions of their learning environment by using the DREEM inventory. The overall DREEM mean score indicating that the perceptions of the clinical physiotherapy students of their learning environment were “more positive than negative”.