Determining the quality of educational climate across four undergraduate dental colleges in rawalpindi/islamabad using the dreem inventory

Objectives. to investigate the perception of current educational environment and to compare the learning environments of different dental educational institutions. materials and methods: it is a cross sectional study in which dundee ready education environment measure (dreem) questionnaire; a measure of educational environment is used. it was carried out in 4 different dental colleges across rawalpindi and islamabad. the dreem questionnaire was administered to 1st,2nd,3rd and 4th year undergraduate students (n =380) in the academic year of 2013/2014. data were entered and analyzed using spss version 20.0. results: out of 400 students,380 students participated in the study (response rate of 95%). the mean total score for the 4 institutions was 120 out of total score of 200. for institution a,the score was 125.4± 18.6 sd,for institution b,the score was 124.9±21.8 sd,for institution c,the score was 119±18.9 sd and for institution d,the score was 109.7± 24.2 sd out of a total score of 200. the average dreem score of preclinical group was 115 and clinical group was 124 out of 200 for all the colleges. conclusion: students in this study reported a positive perception of their educational environment in all 4 dental institutions and the domain scores were also satisfactory. certain areas need further exploration and improvements,which should serve as a decision support mechanism for educationists in rationalizing their priorities for reforms. © 2016 khyber medical college. all rights reserved.