J Educ Eval Health Prof.  2016;13:22. 10.3352/jeehp.2016.13.22.

Construct validity test of evaluation tool for professional behaviors of entry-level occupational therapy students in the United States

• Yuen HK
• Azuero A
• Lackey KW
• Brown NS
• Shrestha S

• KMID: 2413771
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.3352/jeehp.2016.13.22

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.

Keyword

Professionalism; Surveys and questionnaires; Statistical factor analysis; Occupational therapy; United States

MeSH Terms

Dataset
Factor Analysis, Statistical
Humans
Occupational Therapy*
Professionalism
Self-Assessment
Surveys and Questionnaires
United States*

Reference

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