Reliability and validity of the occupational therapy attribute scale.

Area of Science:

• Occupational Therapy Education
• Professional Behavior Assessment
• Fieldwork Evaluation

Background:

• Occupational therapy (OT) student professional behavior is crucial for clinical practice.
• Level II fieldwork requires systematic assessment tools for evaluating student performance.
• Existing assessment methods may lack comprehensive validity and reliability for summative evaluations.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate the validity and reliability of the Occupational Therapy Attribute Scale (OTAS) as a summative assessment tool.
• To confirm OTAS's effectiveness in evaluating professional behavior during level II fieldwork.
• To establish OTAS as a dependable measure for occupational therapy student fieldwork.

Main Methods:

• Development of OTAS items through focus groups with OT clinical educators.
• Assessment of internal consistency using Cronbach's alpha for reliability.
• Exploratory factor analysis to identify underlying constructs of professional behavior.
• Pearson correlation to determine external construct validity against a gold standard (Fieldwork Evaluation).

Main Results:

• High internal consistency for both Fieldwork Evaluation (0.98–0.99) and OTAS (0.91–0.96).
• Factor analysis identified three key professional behavior domains: judgment/clinical reasoning, professional communication, and organization/time management.
• Strong positive correlation (r = 0.74) between OTAS and the Fieldwork Evaluation, indicating good external validity.
• High sensitivity (0.94) suggesting OTAS effectively identifies students suitable for employment.

Conclusions:

• The Occupational Therapy Attribute Scale (OTAS) is a reliable and valid instrument for assessing OT student professional behavior.
• OTAS demonstrates strong psychometric properties suitable for summative fieldwork assessments.
• The scale's ability to predict hiring potential highlights its practical utility in OT education.