RESUMO
OBJECTIVES: The experience of students contributes to proactively identifying the changes necessary in training approaches and activities. The main objective of the Institutional Evaluation Programme was to design and validate a tool that permits discerning the experience of students from traumatology teaching. METHODS: Lecturers from the Orthopaedic Surgery Teaching Unit and experts in quality evaluation methodology, prepared the initial items. In this study, a descriptive analysis was carried out first, followed by an analysis of internal consistency and reliability, construction validity, and predictive validity. RESULTS: The results (Cronbach's alpha=0.58, Inter-Item Correlations >0.5, Eigenvalues >0.6, factor loadings, and the Student t-test values) confirmed its reliability and validity. CONCLUSIONS: The developed scale is reliable and valid to assess the experience of students. The use of a tool with these characteristics systematically contributes to improve teaching quality.