Psychometric Properties of Clinical Learning Environment Comparison Survey Questionnaire in Nursing Students

INTRODUCTION: Continuous evaluations of clinical education and learning in nursing require the use of valid and reliable instruments. The present study aimed to evaluate the validity and reliability of the CLECS questionnaire (a questionnaire for assessing the clinical learning environment) in nursing students. METHODS: This is a psychometric study conducted on 118 nursing students. Through email correspondence with the corresponding author, permission was obtained from the developer to translate, validate, and use the CLECS. The CLECS was translated into Persian. The psychometric process was performed after the translation and cultural adaptation steps. Cronbach's alpha was used to assess the reliability. The instrument validity was assessed through convergent, discriminant, and confirmatory factor analysis. We used AMOS 18 for confirmatory factor analysis and SPSS-20 for reliability, convergent, and discriminant validity. RESULTS: A total of 118 nursing students participated in the study. The Cronbach's alpha value of the questionnaire was 0.942. Convergent validity was obtained in all dimensions above 0.4. The confirmatory factor analysis results confirmed the fit of the final model and showed that the present questionnaire was 6-dimensional. Most of the questions in the questionnaire did not have a good differential validity. The highest and lowest means were related to the nursing process and holism dimensions, respectively. CONCLUSION: Based on the findings of this study, CLECS, except in the discriminant validity, has good validity and reliability, which can be considered to examine the learning environment of undergraduate nursing students.