Measuring Outcomes of Interprofessional Education: A Validation Study of the Self-Assessment of Collaboration Skills Measure

Abstract

Increased attention is being focused on the need for interprofessional collaboration between professional actors, in various fields. In turn, this creates a demand for validated, context-neutral instruments to measure outcomes of interprofessional education. The initial validation of one such measure, the Self-Assessment of Collaboration Skills (SACS) measure, has shown promising results in this regard. The aim of this article has been to contribute to the validation process of the SACS measure by presenting the results of a cross-validation of the measure in a sample of Norwegian students (N= 499) attending a children and youth-focused IPE programme. The study's findings both indicated that the measure is quite stable across the different settings and supported the claim that the SACS is a context-neutral instrument—one that is well-suited to measuring collaboration skills in various IPE settings. These findings may prove important for professionals seeking to evaluate IPE programmes with broad study profiles.