Development and validation of an evaluation tool for nurse interns’ performance

Document Type : Original Article

Authors

Nursing Administration Department, Faculty of Nursing, Ain-Shams University

Abstract

Evaluation is an innate component of any internship program. The availability of a valid and
reliable performance appraisal tool is urgently needed as a cornerstone in the process of interns’
evaluation. This methodological study was aimed at developing and validating an evaluation
tool for nurse interns’ performance. It was carried out at Ain-Shams University Hospitals, and
involved a jury group and nurse interns. The researchers developed the proposed tool based on
pertinent literature to evaluate the performance of nurse interns in their training areas. It had three
sections covering professional behavior, professional performance, and communications skills.
The tool was presented to the jury group for face and content validation. The acceptance level of
any item was set at 70% or higher. Exploratory factor analysis was used to assess its construct
validity. The results indicated high jury agreement upon the original items, with strong
statistically significant positive inter-rater (r=0.940) and intra-rater (r=0.850) correlations for the
total scale. The factor analysis showed a significant fit the original model, with high loadings of
items upon the three factors, the lowest being 0.570. The scale explains 69.780% of the total
variance of performance. The scores of the three factors had very high reliability with high
Cronbach’s alpha coefficients, reaching 0.93 for the professional behavior factor. Hence,
Conclusion a valid and reliable tool was designed for the evaluation of nurse interns’
performance covering the three main dimensions relevant to nurse interns’ practice. It is
recommended to use the tool in the study settings Further studies are suggested to assess the
convergent and predictive validity of the tool.

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