Assessment of the Readiness for Interprofessional Learning Scale (RIPLS): An item response theory analysis

This short report aims to bring evidence from modern psychometric methods to bear on a popularly deployed questionnaire in interprofessional education (IPE) assessment. Specifically, three interrelated problems raised against the Readiness for Interprofessional Learning Scale (RIPLS) are examined in a study with 280 medical and nursing student participants. Firstly, findings support RIPLS overall reliability, but fail to support subscale reliabilities. Secondly, findings indicate a strong, general factor underlying the RIPLS that supports unidimensional interpretations. Thirdly, findings support the RIPLS potential sensitivity to changes with appropriate lower ranges for our pre-training student sample. Recommendations for refinement to the RIPLS include: use of more appropriate reliability indices; factor generalizability; and a subset of items. More generally, refinement is possible, whereas RIPLS disuse or continued misuse with problematic scales is likely to hinder progress in the field of IPE.