Abstract
Objective: To measure the perceptions of the dental students studying in Ras al Khaimah College of Dental
Sciences regarding the educational environment using the DREEM questionnaire.
Study Design: Cross sectional descriptive study.
th Place and Duration of Study: The study was conducted at Ras al Khaimah College of Dental Sciences from 15 of
st
November 2015 to the 1 of March 2016.
Materials and Methods: The study was conducted on dental students of Ras Al Khaimah College of Dental
Sciences (RAKCODS) from first till fifth year. DREEM questionnaires were distributed to a total of 320 students
out of which 245 students returned filled up questionnaires which were collected at the end of the week.
DREEM questionnaire compromises of a set of 50 questions which are graded on a likert scale of 0‐4 by
students. All the data was tabulated in SPSS 16.0 and the results were compared against the fixed values given in
original DREEM inventory.
Results: Out of n=320 students, 245 responded which gave us a response rate of 76.5%. Of all the participants,
94 (38%) were male students and 151 (62%) were female students. The total mean scores for the five major
categories, namely, Student's perceptions of learning (SPL),Student perceptions of teachers (SPT), Students'
academic self‐preparation (SAP), Students' perception of atmosphere (SPA), and Students' self‐perception
(SSP), in the respective order, were 31.08/48, 28.15/44, 21.03/32, 29.87/48, 16.65/28. The global score was
126.78 out of 200 which indicates the students find the educational environment of RAKCODS more positive
than negative.
Conclusion: This study indicates that students find the dental environment provided within RAKCODS more
positive than negative. High scores have been identified in student's perception of learning and the faculty. Low
scores have been attributed to the teaching methodology particularly teacher centered learning.
