Development and Validation of a Clinical Practicum Assessment Tool for the NAACLS-Accredited Biomedical Science Program.

ABSTRACT

Student perspectives on their final year clinical placements in biomedical sciences at Qatar University are assessed using the clinical practicum assessment tool (CPAT), which was developed in-house following accreditation body requirements. The tool, which we call the CPAT-Qatar University (CPAT-QU), covers the three clinical practicum domains practicum content, preceptors, and competencies. Here, we validate this tool. The CPAT-QU has 27 Likert-scale questions and free-text open questions. CPAT-QU readability was calculated using the Flesch-Kincaid Reading Ease (FKRE) instrument. Content validity was assessed using the average and universal average scale-level content validity indices (S-CVI/Average and S-CVI/UA). For construct validity, 50 employed graduates who had completed the practicum were consented for study participation, and the validity was calculated by a principal component analysis (PCA). Reliability was analyzed by Cronbach's alpha. The S-CVI/Average and S-CVI/UA were 0.90 and 0.59, respectively, indicating that an adequate proportion of the content was relevant. The PCA extracted two core components, which explained 63% of the variance in the CPAT-QU. Cronbach's alpha values for the items were within the acceptable range of 0.60-1.00, showing that internal consistency has a good level. CPAT-QU appears to be a useful tool for assessing student perspectives on their clinical placements; however, construct validity needs continuous improvement.