A De Novo Tool to Measure the Preclinical Learning Climate of Medical Faculties in Turkey

Abstract

Although several scales are used to measure general and clinical learning climates, there are no scales that assess the preclinical learning climate. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to develop an effective measurement tool in order to assess the preclinical learning climate. In this cross-sectional study, data were collected from 3,540 preclinical medical students of six medical faculties in Turkey. The methodology included the following activities: generate an item pool, receive expert opinions, perform a pretest to purify the instrument, and conduct factor and reliability analyses. According to the factor analysis, eight factors were determined and their contribution to the variance was 50.39%. In addition, the item factor loadings ranged from .31 to .91, Cronbach's alpha coefficients for the subscales ranged from .72 to .77, and the item-total correlation coefficients for the subscales ranged from .44 to .76. All the items significantly discriminated between the lowand high-performing students (t = 99.57; p = .01). The scale included 52 items with the following subscales: management, teaching, teaching staff, institutional commitment, emotions, inter-student relationships, physical environment, and motivation. The analysis of this newly developed Preclinical Learning Climate Scale (PLCS) indicated that its psychometric properties are appropriate and this scale can be employed to evaluate medical education programs.

A scoping review of the questionnaires used for the assessment of the perception of undergraduate students of the learning environment in healthcare professions education programs

“…In this review, PLCS demonstrated the highest validity evidence on the five APERA standards categories among all questionnaires (Yılmaz et al, 2016). PLCS was developed in 2016, and hence it was not identified in Soemantri et al's (2010) (Soemantri et al, 2010) and in Colbert-Getz et al's (2014) (Colbert-Getz et al, 2014 systematic reviews.…”

“…Content validity and internal structure categories were reported and assessed in most of the questionnaires, while the response process and relation to other variables measures were reported and assessed in a smaller number of studies. Only one questionnaire; the Preclinical Learning Climate Scale (PLCS) provided data on the five psychometric measures (Yılmaz et al, 2016). Furthermore, the PLCS has the highest Beckman et al (2005) total validity score among other questionnaires, followed by the Johns Hopkins Learning Environment Scale (JHLES).…”