Construct validity test of evaluation tool for professional behaviors of entry-level occupational therapy students in the United States.
- Author:
Hon K YUEN
1
;
Andres AZUERO
;
Kaitlin W LACKEY
;
Nicole S BROWN
;
Sangita SHRESTHA
Author Information
- Publication Type:Original Article
- Keywords: Professionalism; Surveys and questionnaires; Statistical factor analysis; Occupational therapy; United States
- MeSH: Dataset; Factor Analysis, Statistical; Humans; Occupational Therapy*; Professionalism; Self-Assessment; Surveys and Questionnaires; United States*
- From:Journal of Educational Evaluation for Health Professions 2016;13(1):22-
- CountryRepublic of Korea
- Language:English
- Abstract: PURPOSE: This study aimed to test the construct validity of an instrument to measure student professional behaviors in entry-level occupational therapy (OT) students in the academic setting. METHODS: A total of 718 students from 37 OT programs across the United States answered a self-assessment survey of professional behavior that we developed. The survey consisted of ranking 28 attributes, each on a 5-point Likert scale. A split-sample approach was used for exploratory and then confirmatory factor analysis. RESULTS: A three-factor solution with nine items was extracted using exploratory factor analysis [EFA] (n=430, 60%). The factors were ‘Commitment to Learning' (2 items), ‘Skills for Learning' (4 items), and ‘Cultural Competence' (3 items). Confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) on the validation split (n=288, 40%) indicated fair fit for this three-factor model (fit indices: CFI=0.96, RMSEA=0.06, and SRMR=0.05). Internal consistency reliability estimates of each factor and the instrument ranged from 0.63 to 0.79. CONCLUSION: Results of the CFA in a separate validation dataset provided robust measures of goodness-of-fit for the three-factor solution developed in the EFA, and indicated that the three-factor model fitted the data well enough. Therefore, we can conclude that this student professional behavior evaluation instrument is a structurally validated tool to measure professional behaviors reported by entry-level OT students. The internal consistency reliability of each individual factor and the whole instrument was considered to be adequate to good.
