Development and psychometric testing of nursing postgraduates' professional ability questionnaire

Abstract

Objective To construct nursing postgraduates' professional ability questionnaire and examine its reliability and validity, in order to provide a reliable and valid measure of professional ability. Methods After extensive studies on contemporary literature and interview, theory framework of professional ability was concluded and items pool was set up. Expert consultation was applied to evaluate the questionnaire and its items and pretesting questionnaire was formed. Pretesting questionnaires filled out by 122 nursing postgraduates were used to do the items analysis and exploratory factor analysis. A total of 176 nursing postgraduates were recruited to examine its validity, reliability and the confirmatory factor analysis. Results The nursing postgraduates' professional ability questionnaire included 5 subscales (27 items) : planning and learning ability, self-management ability, ability to complete the task, social and communication skills, and professional ability. The Cronbach's α of total scale was 0.885, and subscales were 0.704-0.822. Retest reliability was 0.899. Correlation coefficients of total scale scores and each factor were 0.789-0.896 (P<0.01) . The correlation coefficients among factors were 0.465-0.714 (P<0.01) . According to the results of confirmatory factor analysis, χ2/df<5, NFI, RFI, IFI, TLI, CFI were all close to or larger than 0.90, RMSEA<0.06, with PNFI and PCFI both greater than 0.5. Conclusions With good validity and reliability, the nursing postgraduates' professional ability questionnaire could be used as a measure of nursing postgraduates' professional ability. Key words: Nursing postgraduates; Professional ability; Reliability; Validity