Construct validity of the TECS questionnaire for the quality of teamwork in surgery

Abstract

To assess the construct validity and reliability of the Trabajo en Equipo en Cirugía (TECS) questionnaire. The questionnaire was administered to 401 undergraduate students who were doing surgery practices at three universities. An exploratory factor analysis was performed on the first 200 observations, and a confirmatory factor analysis on the remaining ones. The reliability of the instrument was established with Cronbach's alpha. The average age of the study population was 22 years (± 1.4) and 65.5% were women. The factors "Student's disposition towards teamwork", "Structure of the work environment" and "Leadership and collaboration in the work team" showed excellent internal consistency with a Cronbach's alpha of 0.94. The results in the exploratory factor analysis showed adequate goodness of fit with the empirical data. The TECS is a valid (content and construct) and reliable instrument to assess the quality of teamwork in surgery in medical students.