How different is the Learning Environment of Public and Private Sector Medical Colleges in Lahore, Pakistan?

Background & Objective: Regular assessment of the Learning Environment (LE) of health professions education institutions is important for their continuous improvement and to keep the students motivated. Pakistan Medical & Dental Council (PM&DC) applies uniform standards of quality in all public and private sector medical colleges of the country. However, the learning environment of these colleges might be different due to differences in their geographic location, structure, utilization of resources, and modus operandi. This study was conducted to measure the learning environment in selected public and private sector medical colleges in the city of Lahore, Pakistan, using a pre validated instrument (Jhon Hopkins Learning Environment Scale).

Methods: This cross-sectional descriptive study was conducted on 3,400 medical students from six public and private sector medical colleges of Lahore, during November and December 2020. Data was collected through Google forms. Two stage cluster random sampling technique was used to draw the study sample. John Hopkins Learning Environment Scale (JHLES) was used for data collection.

Results: Overall JHLES mean score was 81.75 ±13.5. Public sector colleges had a significantly higher mean JHLES score (82.1) than private-sector colleges (81.1), with small effect size (0.083). Male students rated LE slightly higher than females (82.0 and 81.6 respectively).

Conclusion: JHLES a relatively simpler tool (28 items) than DREEM, can be used effectively in the context of Pakistani environment to measure the LE in medical colleges. Both, public and private sector colleges had high overall JHLES mean scores, with public sector colleges having a significantly higher score than private-sector colleges.