Evaluation of the Quality of Learning Objects in the Health Care Area

Evidence of Validity and Internal

Abstract

In Brazil, distance education plays an important role in the training of human resources in the health area. In this context, learning objects, understood as modular digital resources used to support learning, are widely used tools in the process of knowledge construction, although not all are valid resources. To date, the literature does not have a specific instrument in Portuguese to evaluate the quality of learning objects in the health area. In order to fill this gap, this paper describes the search for evidence of validity of internal structure and convergent validity of Equalis-OAS: Scale to evaluate the quality of learning objects in the health area. For the study, Equalis-OAS was applied to professionals and undergraduate students from the different areas of Health Sciences, all participants taking a continuing education health course about Food and Nutrition in Primary Health Care. One thousand and sixty-nine volunteers participated in the study. An Exploratory Factor Analysis revealed that the instrument, which has as its construct “Quality of learning objects for the health area”, covers three dimensions: “Intrinsic Concepts of Learning Objects in the Health Area”, “Educational Characteristics” and “Presentation”. The final instrument consisted of 41 items, which explained 66.8% of the total variance of the scores. The scale had excellent internal consistency indexes (overall scale: α = 0.979; “Intrinsic Concepts of Learning Objects”: α = 0.927; “Educational”: α = 0.947; “Presentation”: α = 0.977). Regarding convergent validation, Pearson’s correlation indicated that Equalis-OAS had a moderate correlation (r=0.59, p<0.01) with LORI version 2.0, translated into Portuguese, an instrument for the evaluation of learning objects in general (i.e., not specific to the health area). These results indicate that Equalis-OAS is an instrument that presents good evidence of validity, indicating its use in the context of health education and research.