Development and Validation of a Tool to Evaluate Dental Residents’ Understanding and Satisfaction with Their Postgraduate Exit Summative Assessment

Students' comprehension of the assessment process is critical for effective evaluation. The authors at the Aga Khan University Hospital developed a questionnaire to assess Pakistan's dental postgraduate residents' understanding and satisfaction with the summative assessment system conducted by the College of Physicians and Surgeons Pakistan. Following ethical approval, six senior dental faculty and one medical educationist reviewed and validated the 37-item tool across seven domains from September to November 2023. The scale-level content validity index for relevance and clarity was 0.97, with a modified Kappa statistic of ≥0.85. All items received item-level content validity index ≥0.86 except one regarding "examiner calibration" (0.71) which was retained based on literature support. Internal reliability testing with 15 participants yielded a Cronbach's alpha of 0.7. This reliable and validated tool can be used to evaluate learners' perceptions and satisfaction with assessment procedures and is applicable across postgraduate dental education specialities. Key Words: Competency-based learning, Dental education, Postgraduate education, Tool validation, Assessment system, Dental residents, Content validity, Internal reliability, Summative assessment, Curriculum alignment.