Undergraduate Nursing Students’ Perceptions Towards Educational Environment: A Cross-sectional Study

Abstract

Objective: Educational environment is an essential key factor of students’ academic success. A positive educational environment leads to successes, whereas a negative one would inhibit their accomplishments. However, there is still no consensus on the score of educational environments reported in the previous studies. This study aimed to determine the perceptions of the undergraduate nursing students towards their educational environment in Universiti Sains Malaysia. Methods: This cross-sectional survey was conducted between December 2016 and February 2017. The total of 118 undergraduate nursing students from Year 1 to Year 4 of academic session 2016/2017 were participated in this study. Stratified random sampling method was used to obtain the samples according to their year of study. A self-administered questionnaire, Dundee Ready Education Environment Measure (DREEM) instrument was employed and the results were analysed using IBM SPSS for Window version 22.0. Results: Out of 118 participants, 94% were females and the average age was 21.46 years (SD = 1.4). The score of DREEM obtained was 178.00/200 (M = 133.49, SD = 19.90) which corresponds to an excellent environment. The participants identified the strength of the educational environment in item 2 (The teachers are knowledgeable, M = 3.50, SD = 0.64). At the same time, the participants also identified a few items as problematic areas. Conclusion: Perceptions towards educational environment in this study were excellent. It indicated that the faculty has fulfilled their expectations of the educational environment. Despite the fact that no educational environment is perfect, efforts to further improve the educational environment should be conducted continuously for the students’ academic success. It is recommended that future studies to include nursing programs from other universities and utilise a qualitative approach to provide an in-depth data on educational environment.