Validity, reliability and feasibility of a new observation rating tool and a post encounter rating tool for the assessment of clinical reasoning skills of medical students during their internal medicine clerkship: a pilot study

BACKGROUND: Systematic assessment of clinical reasoning skills of medical students in clinical practice is very difficult. This is partly caused by the lack of understanding of the fundamental mechanisms underlying the process of clinical reasoning. METHODS: We previously developed an observation tool to assess the clinical reasoning skills of medical students during clinical practice. This observation tool consists of an 11-item observation rating form (ORT). In the present study we verified the validity, reliability and feasibility of this tool and of an already existing post-encounter rating tool (PERT) in clinical practice among medical students during the internal medicine clerkship. RESULTS: Six raters each assessed the same 15 student-patient encounters. The internal consistency (Cronbach’s alfa) for the (ORT) was 0.87 (0.71–0.84) and the 5-item (PERT) was 0.81 (0.71–0.87). The intraclass-correlation coefficient for single measurements was poor for both the ORT; 0.32 (p < 0.001) as well as the PERT; 0.36 (p < 0.001). The Generalizability study (G-study) and decision study (D-study) showed that 6 raters are required to achieve a G-coefficient of > 0.7 for the ORT and 7 raters for the PERT. The largest sources of variance are the interaction between raters and students. There was a consistent correlation between the ORT and PERT of 0.53 (p = 0.04). CONCLUSIONS: The ORT and PERT are both feasible, valid and reliable instruments to assess students’ clinical reasoning skills in clinical practice.