Abstract: Objective Surveys are widely used in medical education research, yet little is known about the quality of the instruments employed. This study evaluated the quality of published survey instruments in the field of medical education in China.Methods The project covers original research articles that employed at least one survey which is published in two high-impact Chinese journals in the field of medical education from December 2018 to November 2019. The descriptive data on the design, development and implementation of surveys, as well as the quality of survey items were collected and assessed independently.Results Totally 212 articles employed surveys as research method, 68 articles included 73 surveys met inclusion criteria. Response rate, validity and reliability evidence were reported in 33, 18 and 20 surveys, respectively. Item-quality assessment revealed that 17.2% (10/58) articles did not violate established best practices in the design of Likert-type rating items.Conclusions Although surveys were commonly used in medical education research in China, their quality need to be improved. The setting of questions and options in the questionnaire was prone to errors. Aimed to improve the quality of survey and facilitate the delivery of academic information, detail information regarding the design, development and implementation of surveys should be reported.

Key words: Questionnaire survey, Medical education research, Validity, Reliability