Congruence between curriculum goals and students' perceptions of learning environment

The authors' main objectives in the study reported here were to assess medical students' perceptions of the learning environments provided by fourth-year clinical electives taken at three different training sites and to determine whether differences in learning environment among the sites could be attributed to differences in curricular goals. The investigators used a survey containing 32 items subdivided into six subscales: structure, interpersonal relationships, educational climate, practicality, enthusiasm, and humanism. Perceptions of the elective learning environment were obtained from 67 students. Overall differences among training sites as perceived by the students were found by means of a multivariate analysis of variance to be statistically significant. Further analysis revealed site differences on four subscales: structure, interpersonal relations, educational climate, and practicality. Implications of these findings and suggestions for future research are discussed.