Self Assessment Toward Educational Environment

The educational climate surrounding students is considered one of the factors determining academic success. Students and teachers have become aware of the 'educational environment' of their institution. Nursing science courses in Alexandria University and King Abd El Aziz University employ a combination of traditional classroom and clinical learning methods.

However, there is a scarcity of empirical evidence that evaluates this balance or the way nursing students perceive its delivery. Therefore, this study aims to evaluate nursing students' self-assessment toward the overall educational environment within nursing courses in faculties that employ a balance of traditional classroom-based teaching and clinical work.

The method used involved a short demographic questionnaire and the 50-item DREEM questionnaire which was administered during teaching sessions to collect information on the students' perception of the environment in their nursing faculty.

The environment scores across the two different nursing faculties yielded a total DREEM mean score of 148.68 at the Faculty of Nursing – King Abd El Aziz University, and 149.32 at the Faculty of Nursing – Alexandria University. The study also identified problem areas which centered on Social Self-Perceptions, Academic Self-perception, and Perception of Course Organizer. Formative assessment structure for students, attention to timetabling, improved administration, and systems to identify stressed students are our key recommendations.

The educational climate surrounding students is considered one of the factors determining academic success (Ross, 2005). Although difficult to define (Genn & Harden, 1986), the educational climate or environment is seen by several authors as consisting of an objective external environment—everything that happens within the classroom, department, faculty or university (Roff & McAleer, 2001; Genn, 2001) and an internal subjective perception by the students (Ostapczuk et al, 2012).

In addition to the documented curriculum, students and teachers have become aware of the educational environment of the institution (Roff & McAleer, 2001), and their subjective perceptions constitute the climate (Till, 2005). Extensive investigation of the learning environment of nursing students has been carried out with a view to identifying strengths and weaknesses, to monitor change at times of curriculum reform, to compare learning environments across teaching sites, and to compare staff and students' perceptions.

The perception of these students of the environment within which they study has been shown to have a significant impact on their behavior, academic progress, and sense of well-being (Genn, 2001:2; Audin, Davy & Barkham, 2003). As such, the context of health science education, as it is with medicine, has moved in recent decades to embrace a more student-centered curriculum.

Various methodologies have been utilized to investigate the educational climate and recent studies have included the use of qualitative approaches or questionnaires. Of these, only the DREEM (Dundee Ready Educational Environment Measure) questionnaire is specific to the unique environment experienced by students on medical and healthcare-related courses.

The educational environment can be either student-centered or teacher-centered. A student-centered environment encourages students to actively participate, utilizing a two-way transmission of information through discussions to clarify ideas, expressions, content, and exchange experiences, thus sustaining student improvement and creativity. On the other hand, a teacher-centered learning environment, focusing on enhancing teacher skills, helps improve the teaching process. In this model, the teacher interacts unidirectionally with the students, providing them with information and allowing little to no opportunity for student participation.

The teacher is primarily responsible for maintaining the educational system, managing and transferring changes through the use of new technologies and advanced teaching methods. As such, teachers are required to acquire new competencies, both scientifically and socially. Scientific competence requires the teacher to be knowledgeable, creative, innovative, consultative, and an expert in setting learning plans to achieve institutional goals. On the other hand, socially-situated competencies involve providing proper guidance to students, shaping their Personal Learning Environment (PLE).

The personal learning environment focuses on using an appropriate number of individuals and resources to sustain a continuous and suitable ongoing learning process. Universities aim at enhancing their students' perceptions to achieve academic success and create a productive learning environment. They encourage student participation in learning assessments to improve their achievements and ensure a motivating learning environment.

This approach acts as a cornerstone for guiding the educational climate to be more successful, reducing students' barriers and dissatisfaction in their learning environment. Learning environment barriers can be divided into three levels, one being the broad organization's strategic plan and administrative policies and decisions, the second concerning technical and managerial support, and the third focusing on communication, psychological, and sociological barriers.

Interestingly, nursing faculties, albeit working within a traditional paradigm, adopt fairly innovative methods. Therefore, the curriculum alone might not be the sole determinant of students' perceptions of their learning environment. Factors such as faculty support and student motivation also influence the positive outcomes, despite the traditional approach utilized. This positive perception of the learning environment is shared by students across different nursing faculties.

Based on mean scores for elements across the two faculties of Nursing, several aspects of the educational environment were identified as areas needing improvement. Elements such as Social Self-Perceptions, Academic Self-perception, and Perception of Course Organisers relate to teacher attitudes. Low scores could be attributed to students' limited contact with patients, academic staff, and colleagues, restricting their ability to give practical opinions about these elements. Similar findings were reported in two other studies on dental students using the DREEM questionnaire (Thomas et al, 2009; Ali et al, 2012). Avalos (2007) suggested that low scores for this item could reflect stressful situations stemming from lectures and a tight clinical schedule, especially for clinical students.

Such perceptions could also reflect administrative resources or a coordination deficit among staff members within the faculty office and the academic staff. Similar perceptions were noted among final-year dental students in an Indian dental school (Thomas et al, 2009). These findings may be connected to the congested lecture schedule and required supervision of patients, prerequisites for students to qualify for the final examination in the faculty.

Sofola and Jeboda (2006), in a study among Nigerian dental students, identified lack of time for relaxation, the amount of assigned work, and receiving criticism from supervisors, respectively, as the three highest sources of stress. This has also been indicated in a previous study in Greek dental students (Polychronopoulou & Divaris, 2005). In teacher competency studies, lecturing and learning are two learning tasks that surface repeatedly.

Several researchers, viz. Downes (2010), Minocha et al. (2011), Alvarez et al. (2009), and Thach & Murphy (1995), argue that a lecturer organizes larger bodies of thought into a comprehensible whole and employs oratory skills and exposition to make the complex clear for students. Siemens & Tittenberger (2009) observed that a lecturer or instructor must be an expert learner. Related to lecturing and instructing is the very critical competency of theorizing and demonstrating.

A demonstrator uses some equipment, models, simulations, or movies, to use the suitable teaching and learning methods to support students' change of attitude. Meanwhile, a theorizer, as noted by Downes (2010), "leads students to develop world views, find the underlying cause or meaning of things, create order out of what appears to be chaos, and help them remember things by giving a single structure." "Teachers need to get accustomed to and trained on their new role as partners and facilitators in learning processes, rather than lecturers, to cope with the new advances in the educational environment as well as the different types of students."

Minocha et al. (2011) add that one of the changing roles that this new learning phenomenon has created for teachers is that of a facilitator who helps learners adapt their educational environment, scaffold learning, and manage content before it becomes more complex (Global Teacher, 2010). Attwell (2009) stresses that, in the learning environment process, coordination, collaboration, cooperation, communication, connection, and integration between teacher and students is important. Peña-López (2010) puts emphasis on the teacher's coordination role and notes that the coordinator provides a framework in which learners collaborate, connect, and integrate with each other more flexibly.

Mullen (2010) and McLoughlin & Lee (2010) suggested in their studies that the learning environment demands a teacher act as a) a coach, who provides learners with access to a variety of independent learning experiences, b) a concierge, who directs learners to learning opportunities they need to be aware of, serves to provide a form of soft guidance, and permits them to explore on their own, c) an evaluator, who not only assesses declarative knowledge and compositional ability, but also the instinct, reaction, sociability, habit, and attitude of students in relation to their learning, and d) a goal setter, who assists learners in taking control of their learning and education, and scaffolds them to realize their goals.

In summary, the current study highlighted several important findings. Even though the total Educational Environment score was more positive than negative, it was still lower than a supposedly 'excellent' educational environment. The use of the DREEM as a regular monitoring tool would permit timely interventions to remediate problematic areas, which translates into improved student perceptions of the educational experience.

Continuous quality improvement and innovation are essential in nursing faculties. The study subjects and settings focus on problem areas such as self-social perception, academic perception, and course organizer perception. These issues emphasize factual learning, boredom, and stress. Key recommendations include a formative assessment structure for students, improved administration, attention to timetabling, and systems to identify stressed students. The results of this study can be used as preliminary data for future comparative studies.

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