Evaluation of a new clinical performance assessment tool: a reliability study
Abstract
Clinical practice is an essential requirement of any graduate
physiotherapy programme. For this purpose, valid and reliable assessment tools
are paramount for the measurement of key competencies in the real-world
setting. This study aims to determine the internal consistency and inter-rater
reliability of a newly developed and validated clinical performance assessment
form. A cross-sectional quantitative research design was used, which included
paired evaluations of 32 (17 treatment and 15 assessment) student examinations
performed by two independent clinical educators. Chronbachs alpha was computed
to
assess
internal
consistency
and
intraclass
correlation
coefficient
(ICC’s)
with
confidence
intervals
of
95%
were
computed
to
determine
the
percentage
agreement
between
paired
examiners.
The
degree of internal consistency was substantial for all key performance areas of both examinations, except for time
and organisational management (0.21) and professionalism (0.42) in the treatment and evaluation examinations
respectively.
The
overall
internal
consistency
was
0.89
and
0.73
for
both
treatment
and
assessment
examinations,
indicating
substantial
agreement.
With
regard
to
agreement
between
raters,
the
ICC’s
for
the
overall
marks
were
0.90
and
0.97
for
both
treatment
and
assessment
examinations.
Clinical
educators
demonstrated
a
high
level
of
reliability
in
the
assessment
of
students’
competence
using
the
newly
developed
clinical
performance
assessment
form.
These
findings
greatly
underscore
the
reliability
of
results
obtained
through
observation
of
student
examinations,
and
add another tool to the basket of ensuring quality assurance in physiotherapy clinical practice assessment.