Development and Validation of a Rubric for Evaluating Formative Feedback on Non-Technical Skills in General Surgery...

Area of Science:

• Medical Education
• Surgical Training
• Assessment Tools

Background:

• Effective feedback is crucial for surgical resident development.
• Current methods for assessing narrative feedback quality are limited.
• Workplace-based assessments provide opportunities for real-time feedback.

Purpose of the Study:

• To develop and validate a rubric for rating narrative feedback quality.
• To assess feedback on both technical and non-technical skills.
• To enhance workplace-based assessment tools in general surgery residency.

Main Methods:

• Instrument development using literature review, Delphi process, and surveys.
• Psychometric testing of narrative feedback comments from the System for Improving and Measuring Procedural Learning (SIMPL) application.
• Validation involved faculty and resident participation and double-coding of comments.

Main Results:

• A four-domain rubric (clarity, specificity, actionability, tone) was created.
• All domains were deemed important by faculty and residents.
• High reliability (intraclass correlation coefficients > 0.7) and strong correlations between usefulness and rubric domains were found.

Conclusions:

• A validated rubric reliably assesses narrative feedback quality in operative assessments.
• The tool can improve quality assurance and faculty development in surgical education.
• This rubric supports research aimed at enhancing feedback for surgical residents.