University of the West of Scotland, Paisley, United Kingdom.
Int J Nurs Stud. 2010 Mar;47(3):386-91. doi: 10.1016/j.ijnurstu.2009.09.004. Epub 2009 Oct 12.
To review the use and usefulness of the methodological strategy of triangulation in the assessment of skill in nursing curricula.
Systematic search of the literature relevant to the definition and assessment of skill, reliability and validity of assessment methods and triangulation of assessment strategies.
One hundred and twenty papers from nursing, medical, educational and social scientific databases, relevant websites and relevant books were reviewed. Forty papers were included based on their relevance to the theory and methodology of clinical skills assessment of health care professionals, particularly nurses. Papers concerning vocational skills assessment and the assessment of skill in school children were excluded.
There is a current imperative within the field of health care professional education to assess clinical skills and to quantify this assessment. However, clinical skill, as it relates to cognition, is poorly defined concept and may be viewed as a quality of the practitioner and, as such, is difficult to quantify. Very many methods of assessing clinical skill have been documented and there are inherent issues in ensuring both reliability and validity of these assessment strategies for clinical skill. This has led commentators to suggest that the process of triangulation should be employed.
The paper fundamentally questions whether the concept of triangulation can be applied to skills assessment without dependable measures of reliability and validity of the tools of assessment and concludes that the process of applying multiple modes of assessment should not be confused with the process of triangulation.
回顾在护理课程技能评估中使用和利用三角测量方法策略的情况。
对与技能定义和评估、评估方法的可靠性和有效性以及评估策略的三角测量相关的文献进行系统搜索。
从护理、医学、教育和社会科学数据库、相关网站和相关书籍中查阅了 120 篇论文。根据它们与卫生保健专业人员（尤其是护士）临床技能评估的理论和方法学的相关性，选择了 40 篇论文。排除了涉及职业技能评估和儿童技能评估的论文。
在医疗保健专业教育领域，目前迫切需要评估临床技能并对其进行量化。然而，与认知相关的临床技能是一个定义不明确的概念，可能被视为从业者的一种素质，因此难以量化。已经记录了非常多的评估临床技能的方法，并且在确保这些评估策略的可靠性和有效性方面存在固有问题。这导致评论员建议应该采用三角测量的方法。
本文从根本上质疑在没有评估工具的可靠性和有效性的可靠措施的情况下，是否可以将三角测量的概念应用于技能评估，并得出结论，应用多种评估模式的过程不应与三角测量的过程混淆。
