Comparing Traditional Versus Retrospective Pre-/Post-assessment in an Interdisciplinary Leadership Training Program.

Area of Science:

• Healthcare Leadership
• Interdisciplinary Training
• Program Evaluation

Background:

• The U.S. healthcare system's move towards collaboration increases the need for interdisciplinary leaders.
• Evaluating leadership competencies in interdisciplinary programs is challenging due to diverse trainee expertise and goals.
• Traditional pre-/post-testing methods for leadership competencies are susceptible to response-shift bias.

Purpose of the Study:

• To explore the utility of retrospective pre-tests in controlling for response-shift bias within an interdisciplinary leadership training program.
• To assess the cost-effectiveness of retrospective pre-tests for evaluating leadership competency changes.

Main Methods:

• Thirty-four trainees from an interdisciplinary leadership program participated over three years.
• A self-assessment aligned with maternal and child health (MCH) leadership competencies was used.
• Both traditional pre-test and retrospective pre-/post-test self-assessments were administered.

Main Results:

• Retrospective pre-/post-test scores showed significant self-reported increases in all 24 leadership areas (p ≤ .001).
• Participants rated their traditional pre-test scores significantly higher than their retrospective pre-test scores across all 24 areas (p ≤ .001).
• This suggests retrospective pre-tests mitigate response-shift bias.

Conclusions:

• Retrospective pre-tests appear to effectively control for response-shift bias in leadership competency evaluation.
• This methodology presents a cost-effective tool for assessing trainee development in interdisciplinary programs.
• Findings support the use of retrospective pre-tests in broader community-based MCH training initiatives.