using Item Response Theory (IRT) to Assess psychometric properties of undergraduate Clinical Education Environment Measure (uCEEM) among Medical students at the Faculty of Medicine, suez Canal university

Abstract

Undergraduate Clinical Education Environment Measure (UCEEM) has been used as a reliable and valid tool to evaluate clinical workplace, and it might be used for further purposes such as benchmarking and evaluating different clinical context. Thus, we aim to examine psychometric properties of UCEEM by using item response theory (IRT). This study is a cross-sectional field survey, with an explorative component of psychometrics conducted at the Faculty of Medicine, Suez Canal University. We used IRT which emphasises the fact that an individual’s response to a questionnaire item is influenced by qualities of both the individual and the item. The results indicate that there are four factors obtained by exploratory factor analysis (EFA) form a reliable hypothetical model, and the goodness fit indices of the first order confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) indicated a good fit. The test characteristic curve (TCC) in IRT gives us information about the expected score in the questionnaire based on the level of agreement (ability = θ), e.g., the expected score is 42 if the level of agreement was 0. Based on study results, it was evident that the UCEEM questionnaire has a high reliability and acceptable evidence of construct validity to use it for further purposes.