The Development of a 360-degree Evaluation Model of Medical Curriculum with the Kirkpatrick Hierarchy Approach

Abstract

A 360-degree evaluation model of the medical curriculum was developed by adhering to the Kirkpatrick Hierarchy. To bridge the research gap pertaining to instrument development of 360-degree evaluation, a set of tools derived from various stakeholders’ perspectives was used. This mixed-method study in the sequential exploratory design involved 797 participants for two years, April 2017 to November 2019. The three study phases involved were: the qualitative phase (18 informants), the item construction phase with exploratory factor analysis (EFA) (298 participants), and the validation phase via confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) (481 participants by random sampling). In-depth interview sessions were conducted with two stakeholder groups; lecturers and preceptors. Focus group discussion (FGD) sessions were conducted with two other groups; medical students and patients at the teaching hospital. The item construction phase was executed based on the themes that emerged from qualitative findings. Lastly, the final validation stage was performed based on the EFA results. In total, 23 themes were derived from four stakeholder groups. In the item construction phase, 13 and 10 factors were identified for lecturer and student instruments, respectively. To build the preceptor and patient tools, 10 scales were used to validate the item constructs. Thus, the 360-degree evaluation model has four levels of Kirkpatrick Hierarchy with four instrument models. The 360-degree evaluation model is valid, well-constructed, and accurately reflects the indicator variables. The evaluation model is feasible and acceptable to assess the medical curriculum.