Evaluating the quality of learning-team processes in medical education: development and validation of a new measure

Measurement of the quality of team processes in medical education, particularly in classroom-based teaching settings, has been limited by a lack of measurement instruments. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to develop and test an instrument to measure the quality of team interactions. The authors created 30 items and reduced these to 18 items using factor analysis. They distributed the scale to 309 second-year medical students (RR = 95%) in a course that used teams and measured internal consistency, validity, and differences in scores between teams. Cronbach's alpha for the scale was 0.97. Team ratings were variable, with a mean score of 95.7 (SD 8.5) out of 108. Team Performance Scale (TPS) scores correlated inversely with the spread of peer evaluation scores (r = -0.38, P = .003). Differences between teams were statistically significant (P < .001, eta = 0.33). The TPS was short, had evidence of reliability and validity, and exhibited the capacity to distinguish between teams. This instrument can provide a measure of the quality of team interactions. More work is needed to provide further evidence of validity and generalizability.