Design of a Situational Judgment Test for Preclinical Interprofessional Collaboration

Area of Science:

• Health Professions Education
• Interprofessional Collaboration
• Assessment and Evaluation

Background:

• An unmet need exists for feasible, valid, and reliable assessments of interprofessional collaborative knowledge and skills in early health professions education.
• Current assessment tools often lack contextual relevance for foundational interprofessional learning.
• Developing such assessments is crucial for fostering effective teamwork in healthcare settings.

Purpose of the Study:

• To develop an Interprofessional Situational Judgement Test (IPSJT) for measuring interprofessional collaborative intentions.
• To gather initial evidence of content and internal structure validity for the IPSJT.
• To evaluate the feasibility of using the IPSJT with early-stage health professions students.

Main Methods:

• Item development and refinement process conducted from January to June 2018.
• An 18-question IPSJT was administered to 953 first-year students across 10 health professions programs.
• Data analysis included item-level analyses, difficulty, test-retest reliability, and exploratory factor analysis.

Main Results:

• The IPSJT demonstrated an overall reliability of 0.62 after excluding one item.
• Test-retest reliability was consistent (r = 0.50, P < .001).
• Exploratory factor analysis suggested a 3-factor model, indicating the assessment of multiple competencies.

Conclusions:

• This study provides the first step toward a valid and reliable IPSJT for early learners.
• The emergent 3-factor model supports the assessment of multiple interprofessional competencies.
• Further research is needed to expand the question bank and gather additional validity evidence.