Perceptions of Dental Students Towards Learning Environment in an Indian Scenario

BACKGROUND Dental students constitute a stakeholder group that is able to provide unique information concerning the effectiveness of the dental curriculum. The purpose of this study was to determine students' perceptions of the learning environment, intellectual climate and teacher student relationships in dental school. METHODS This study was conducted among 341 dental students of two dental college of Udaipur, Rajasthan, India. Response rate was 85%. In this study, the dental version of Medical Student Learning Environment Survey has been used. The questionnaires were divided in to 7 subscales like flexibility, student to student interaction, emotional climate, meaningful experience, organization, supportiveness, and breadth of interest. The students were divided in to two groups of preclinical and clinical for the purpose of comparison. The data were analyzed using ANOVA and t-test. RESULTS The results were statistically analyzed and differentiated in to preclinical and clinical phases. The preclinical and clinical students rated the student to student interaction as the most favorable whereas the lowest score was given to flexibility by both preclinical and clinical students. Preclinical students rated emotional climate as the lowest after flexibility whereas clinical students rated breadth of interest and meaningful experience as the lowest score after flexibility. CONCLUSION This study emphasized the areas of improvement in dental school learning environment based on students' perspective by making these required and much needed changes in the curriculum. Students' satisfaction with their dental education can be increased.