MEDICAL STUDENTS’ EVALUATION OF THE “PROFESSIONAL COMMUNICATION OF A PHYSICIAN” COURSE: PSYCHOMETRIC VALIDATION OF A QUESTIONNAIRE AND POST-COURSE SURVEY RESULTS
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.11603/m.2414-5998.2026.3.16633Keywords:
medical education; professional communication; communication skills; psychometric validation; questionnaire; student feedback; quality assurance; simulation-based learningAbstract
Communication competence is a core professional competency of physicians and an essential component of high-quality healthcare. In addition to learning outcomes assessment, student feedback has become an important tool for internal quality assurance in higher education. However, validated instruments for comprehensive evaluation of communication courses by medical students are lacking in Ukraine. To develop and psychometrically validate an original Ukrainian-language questionnaire for evaluating the educational component Professional Communication of a Physician and to analyze the results of a post-course student survey. A single-center post-course study was conducted among 184 fourth-year medical students. The original questionnaire, developed based on the conceptual framework of Peter Fieger’s Student Outcomes Survey, comprised 20 items grouped into four domains and two open-ended questions. Psychometric evaluation included Cronbach’s alpha, the Kaiser–Meyer–Olkin (KMO) measure, Bartlett’s test of sphericity, and exploratory factor analysis. Descriptive statistics and thematic analysis were applied. The questionnaire demonstrated strong psychometric properties (Cronbach’s α = 0.916; KMO = 0.884; p<0.001). Exploratory factor analysis confirmed a four-factor structure explaining 67.5 % of the total variance. Students rated the course highly across all domains, with the highest scores for overall course evaluation and communication skills development. Simulation-based learning, role-play, structured communication models, and the practical orientation of the course were identified as its most valuable components. The most frequent suggestions for improvement included expanding clinical scenarios, increasing the use of standardized patients, and improving assessment methods. The developed questionnaire is a reliable and valid instrument for evaluating educational components in professional communication. The post-course survey demonstrated high student satisfaction and supports the use of the questionnaire for internal quality assurance and educational research in medical education.
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