Preliminary validation of the Dental Clinical Learning Environment Instrument in a Brazilian dental school

Introduction This study aimed to perform a preliminary validation of the Dental Clinical Learning Environment Instrument (DECLEI) in a Brazilian dental school. Material and methods Dental Clinical Learning Environment Instrument was translated into Brazilian-Portuguese, and Brazilian DECLEI's items relevance and content validity were assessed using the content validity index (CVI). DECLEI was then distributed to 155 Brazilian undergraduate dental students attending the 7th and 8th semester of dental studies. Principal Component Analysis (PCA) was used as an initial exploration of the Brazilian DECLEI's internal structure. Item-total correlations for the remaining items were calculated to identify items with poor discrimination coefficients. The internal consistency reliability for the final set of 17 items was calculated using Cronbach's alpha coefficient. The sensitivity of the instrument to measure differences between groups regarding year in dental school, race and sex was also assessed. Results The CVI was ≥0.80 for all 24 items of the Brazilian DECLEI indicating that all items were relevant to the local culture. Principal Components Analysis (PCA) provided evidence of a single dominant component containing 17 items (Cronbach's α = .86), and all 17 items met the benchmark of acceptable item-total correlation. Significant differences were found only when comparing 7th- and 8th-semester students. Conclusions Dental Clinical Learning Environment Instrument has the potential to be used as a reliable instrument to measure clinical learning environments for Brazilian dental students.