The Revised American Occupational Therapy Association Fieldwork Performance Evaluations: Evaluation of Content...

Occupational therapy education and practice has changed over time; however, items on the American Occupational Therapy Association's (AOTA's) Fieldwork Performance Evaluations (FWPEs) for the Occupational Therapy Student (OTS) and Occupational Therapy Assistant Student (OTAS) have not been updated in more than two decades.

To explore evidence of validity in relation to test content of the revised FWPEs for the OTS and OTAS.

A qualitative study using cognitive interviews was conducted to gather perspectives on the revised FWPEs, including updated items and a proposed rating scale. A content analysis approach was used to link patterns in responses to stable, meaningful constructs to further align and refine content of the tool before further validation.

Fieldwork sites and academic settings.

Eighteen fieldwork educators (FWEs) and academic fieldwork coordinators.

Seven areas for refinement were identified: (1) relevance to a variety of practice settings, (2) overlapping and redundant items, (3) long item statements, (4) double- and triple-barreled item statements, (5) alignment between OTS and OTAS items, (6) further alignment with AOTA and Accreditation Council for Occupational Therapy Education documents and contemporary practice, and (7) wording and features of the proposed rating scale. The findings guided revisions of FWPE content.

Cognitive interviewing was a critical step in refining the FWPE items to support content validity. The issues identified may not have been detected using traditional approaches to survey development and therefore were critical in maximizing the validity and usefulness of the final items, which will ultimately benefit fieldwork educators and students.

This study resulted in refinements to FWPE items before the next step in the validation process, ultimately improving the final FWPE items. In addition, this article outlines a process that other researchers can use to validate similar tools.