Evaluation of validation characteristics of comprehensive midwifery examination checklists to evaluate the clinical skills of midwifery students: A methodological study.

Background: Due to the high percentage of need for clinical techniques in the field of midwifery, evaluation of clinical skills of graduates is necessary.

Objective: The aim of this study was to investigate the validation characteristics of comprehensive examination checklists in midwifery students.

Design: The present study was a methodological study in which seven checklists related to important midwifery skills were entered into the psychometric process.

Setting: The study was conducted in the School of Nursing and Midwifery and the Persian Gulf martyrs and Salman Farsi Hospitals, Nabi-e-Akram comprehensive health center in Bushehr city.

Participants: Quantitative face validity was performed by examining the item impact score based on the opinions of 10 midwifery graduates. Quantitative content validity was performed by examining the content validity ratio and index based on the opinions of 12 experts. For structural validity as well as reliability assessment, checklists were used for 78 midwifery students who had completed their studies and were about to graduate. To determine the convergent validity, the correlation of the score of each checklist with the mean score of the similar fields of each skill was measured. Divergent validity was assessed by measuring the correlation between the score of each checklist and the score of other checklists and comparing it with the internal consistency of each checklist. Internal consistency and agreement between evaluators were used to assess reliability. Data were analyzed using SPSS19.

Results: Content validity index and content validity ratio for each item were more than 0.79 and 0.67, respectively. There was a significant correlation between the score of each skill and the mean score of similar fields of that skill (P < 0.05).

Conclusion: According to the results, it can be concluded that comprehensive midwifery student evaluation checklists are a valid and reliable tool.