Exploring the validity and reliability of a questionnaire for evaluating virtual patient design with a special emphasis on fostering clinical reasoning

Huwendiek, Sören; deLeng, Bas; van der Vleuten, Cees; Hoffmann, Georg F.; Tonshoff, Burkhard; Dolmans, Diana (August 2013). Exploring the validity and reliability of a questionnaire for evaluating virtual patient design with a special emphasis on fostering clinical reasoning. In: Association for Medical Education in Europe. Prag, Tschechien. 24.-28.08.2013.

Background: The design of Virtual Patients (VPs) is essential. So far there are no validated evaluation instruments for VP design published. Summary of work: We examined three sources of validity evidence of an instrument to be filled out by students aimed at measuring the quality of VPs with a special emphasis on fostering clinical reasoning: (1) Content was examined based on theory of clinical reasoning and an international VP expert team. (2) Response process was explored in think aloud pilot studies with students and content analysis of free text questions accompanying each item of the instrument. (3) Internal structure was assessed by confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) using 2547 student evaluations and reliability was examined utilizing generalizability analysis. Summary of results: Content analysis was supported by theory underlying Gruppen and Frohna’s clinical reasoning model on which the instrument is based and an international VP expert team. The pilot study and analysis of free text comments supported the validity of the instrument. The CFA indicated that a three factor model comprising 6 items showed a good fit with the data. Alpha coefficients per factor were 0,74 - 0,82. The findings of the generalizability studies indicated that 40-200 student responses are needed in order to obtain reliable data on one VP. Conclusions: The described instrument has the potential to provide faculty with reliable and valid information about VP design. Take-home messages: We present a short instrument which can be of help in evaluating the design of VPs.

Item Type:

Conference or Workshop Item (Speech)

Division/Institute:

04 Faculty of Medicine > Medical Education > Institute for Medical Education > Assessment and Evaluation Unit (AAE)
04 Faculty of Medicine > Medical Education > Institute for Medical Education

UniBE Contributor:

Huwendiek, Sören

Subjects:

600 Technology > 610 Medicine & health

Language:

English

Submitter:

Patrick Jucker-Kupper

Date Deposited:

26 Mar 2014 15:52

Last Modified:

05 Dec 2022 14:30

URI:

https://boris.unibe.ch/id/eprint/44980

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