Table 4.
Forms of validation of a survey in relation to the Medical E-Learning Evaluation Survey.
| Type of validation | Explanation | Relationship to MEESa |
| Face | Whether the instrument is understandable and relevant | Checked in this study by asking the PGMeLb creators about understandability and added value |
| Content | Whether the instrument measures the most important aspects of a concept that it is designed to evaluate | Checked in three previous studies by means of a review [10], focus groups [11], and an international Delphi study [4] |
| Construct | The degree to which the instrument’s scores relate to other measures in a manner that is consistent with an a priori hypothesis concerning the concepts being measured | Awaiting future validation: the construct of the MEES is predicting efficiency and effectiveness by evaluating the experience of affordances to determine the quality of the instructional design |
| Criterion | How well one measure predicts the outcome of another | Awaiting future validation: MEES might predict the satisfaction or learning aim transference of the PGMeL |
| Predictive | The instrument’s ability to predict future test results | Awaiting future validation: as regards the MEES, this is in line with the criterion validity and can be checked in the future |
| Structural | Whether all items in a scale or subscale measure the same concept of the dimensionality of the instrument | Not applicable; this can be done by factor analysis but assumes that a scale or subscale is highly correlated, which might not be the case in the MEES |
| Known-group | The ability to be sensitive to differences between groups of users that may be expected to score differently in the predicted direction | Not applicable; this can be done by comparing PGMeL designed for certain cultural groups, but the assumptions are too complex to use this in practice |
| Concurrent | The association of the instrument with accepted standards | Not applicable; there is no gold standard of evaluating PGMeL |
aMEES: Medical E-Learning Evaluation Survey.
bPGMeL: postgraduate medical e-learning.