Examining Validity for the Pharmacy Affective Domain Situational Judgment Test.

Area of Science:

• Pharmacy Education
• Assessment in Health Professions
• Affective Domain Measurement

Background:

• Accreditation standards now include the affective domain in pharmacy education.
• Programs require valid methods for formative assessment of affective competencies.
• Existing assessment tools may be resource-intensive.

Purpose of the Study:

• To examine the validity evidence of a new situational judgment test.
• To assess the affective domain aligned with Accreditation Council for Pharmacy Education (ACPE) Standards 2016.
• To evaluate the Pharmacy Affective Domain Situational Judgment Test (PAD-S).

Main Methods:

• A 15-item situational judgment test (PAD-S) was developed and pilot-tested.
• The PAD-S was administered to 559 students across three pharmacy institutions.
• Internal structure validity was analyzed using item descriptives, Cronbach alpha, and Rasch modeling.

Main Results:

• The PAD-S demonstrated acceptable reliability (Cronbach alpha = 0.70).
• Rasch modeling confirmed item hierarchy and contribution to the measure.
• Lower reliability from Rasch model (0.65-0.66) suggests limited ability ranking, possibly due to item difficulty distribution.

Conclusions:

• The PAD-S shows promise as a valid measure of the affective domain in pharmacy.
• It can function as a valuable formative assessment instrument.
• The PAD-S offers a potentially less resource-intensive alternative to other assessment methods.