Establishing construct validity of AMEET (assessment of medical educational environment by the teachers) inventory

To establish the construct validity of Assessment of Medical Educational Environment by the Teachers inventory.

The cross-sectional analytical study was conducted from January to May 2017 and comprised doctors working as faculty in Rawalpindi Medical College, Rawalpindi, Pakistan, and its 3 teaching hospitals. Non-probability (purposive) sampling was used to meet the criteria of 5 participants per item of the Assessment of Medical Educational Environment by the Teachers inventory. Exploratory factor analysis was done using SPSS 20 and confirmatory factor analysis was done with version 16 of the Analysis of Moment Structures software.

Of the 250 subjects, 126(50.4%) were males and 124(49.6%) were females. Exploratory factor analysis ended with extraction of 11 components. It showed sufficiency of sample size and no multi-collinearity. Three (50%) of the six domains were finalised on the whole and 10(20%) of the 50 items were debarred from the inventory. All three domains had high reliability. Root mean square residual and chi square / degree of freedom were within acceptable limit. However, comparative fit index, goodness of fit index, normed fit index and root mean square error of approximation portrayed not only poor model fit after re-running confirmatory factor analysis, but also led to omission of further 16(32%) items with poor loadings from the inventory. Thus, there was exclusion of total 26(52%) items from the tool and the finalised Assessment of Medical Educational Environment by the Teachers inventory comprised 24(48%) items.

Construct validity of Assessment of Medical Educational Environment by the Teachers inventory could not be established, but the tool was found to be reliable.