A national survey evaluating the construct validity and reliability of a medical student feedback literacy questionnaire

Introduction Medical student feedback literacy is a crucial competency to support the learning and training of safe, competent healthcare professionals. To date, the IMPROVE-FL questionnaire has been developed as a specific instrument to measure levels of medical student feedback literacy. Although this questionnaire had established excellent content validity in our previous work, more validity and reliability evidence are required to endorse its research and practical use.Methods This study applied the 28-item IMPROVE-FL questionnaire in a national survey of 29 medical schools with quota sampling to gather evidence of construct validity (via confirmatory factor analysis and hypothesis testing) and assess its internal consistency (via construct reliability analysis). Subsequently, a smaller study was conducted in two medical schools, one public and one private, to establish evidence of test–retest reliability.Results These analyses reported that the finalised 23-item IMPROVE FL had excellent model fit and evidence of construct validity (β = .64–.87; x2/df = 3.86; RMSEA = .05; SRMR = .03; CFI = .95; TLI = .94; GFI = .93; AGFI = .91), confirmed the expected correlation with fixed mindset (r = −.116, p < .001) and growth mindset (r = .327, p < .001), good internal consistency (α = .70–.89), and moderate test–retest reliability (ICC = 0.50–0.76).Conclusion These findings provide satisfactory evidence of construct validity, test–retest, and construct reliability, comparable to existing feedback literacy instruments in other educational contexts. Therefore, these findings support the use of IMPROVE-FL for research and practice.