Development and utility of a questionnaire to evaluate the quality of PBL problems

This study aimed to develop an instrument to measure the clinical learning climate of undergraduate medical education in Thailand. There were 3 stages of data collection. The first stage employed qualitative inquiry to identify key attributes of the learning environment. Stage 1 output was arranged into the items in the questionnaire for Stage 2 data collection. The validating process in Stage 2 resulted in the list of factors influencing the clinical learning climate with the degree of importance of each factor. The initial version of the learning climate measure was developed based on the findings from this stage. Stage 3 aimed to collect data for further refinement of the instrument. Item analysis and factor analysis were used to explore the constructs of the climate measure. The subscales were established using both statistical and qualitative factor analysis. The final output of this study is the 43-item learning climate measure for clinical phase (10 subscales). Finally, the psychometric properties of the instrument were discussed. The utility of the learning climate measure was recommended.