Content Validity Assessment and Outcomes of Kenya Clinical Officers Pre-Internship Licensure Examinations

Abstract

As part of quality assurance, Clinical Officers Council (COC) conducted the content validity assessment of Kenyan Clinical Officers to determine the association between the program type and the dimensions of professional competence questions, the dimensions of professional competence, assessment of the cognitive level of the test items, evaluate how practitioners rate the relevance of the test items and the subsequent performance by candidates. The cross-sectional study adopted both qualitative and quantitative approaches. Purposive sampling of test items from five examination series conducted between 2018 and 2021 were used. Appropriate descriptive and inferential statistics were used for data analysis. Results showed a highly significant association between the program type and the dimension of professional competency of the test item question (X² (3, N = 600) = 24.567, p < .0005). Overall, majority (78%& 82%) of test items were found to be relevant both Degree and Diploma examinations (I-CVI, 0.78). Most of the Degree and Diploma test items reached a good reliability with Cronbach’s Alpha (0.873 and 0.835), while the test items on cognitive level reached an excellent Cronbach’s Alpha reliability (0.972 and 0.988), respectively. Since the Cronbach’s Alpha reliability coefficient values for the test items were above the acceptable minimum of 0.70 for most social research situations, all the test items were therefore worthy of retention. Practitioners found 96% of health sytems management and 76% of the community health test items to be relevant, unlike relatively lower percentages reported by post-interns. There was subsequent notable improvement (from 55% to 58%) in the mean scores in most Universities. Revision of COC examination policy to improve examination standards and performance, professional competence, validity, cognitive level, capacity building, best timing and collaborative development of a guiding examination blue print is recommended