Sattelmayer Karl Martin, Jagadamma Kavi C, Sattelmayer Franziska, Hilfiker Roger, Baer Gillian
School of Health Sciences, Physiotherapy, Queen Margaret University, Edinburgh, Scotland.
School of Health Sciences, University of Applied Sciences and Arts Western Switzerland Valais (HES-SO Valais-Wallis), Leukerbad, Switzerland.
Arch Physiother. 2020 May 25;10:9. doi: 10.1186/s40945-020-00080-0. eCollection 2020.
Procedural skills are a key element in the training of future physiotherapists. Procedural skills relate to the acquisition of appropriate motor skills, which allow the safe application of clinical procedures to patients. In order to evaluate procedural skills in physiotherapy education validated assessment instruments are required. Recently the assessment of procedural skills in physiotherapy education (APSPT) tool was developed. The overall aim of this study was to establish the structural validity of the APSPT. In order to do this the following objectives were examined: i) the fit of the items of APSPT to the Rasch-model, ii) the fit of the overall score to the Rasch model, iii) the difficulty of each test item and iv) whether the difficulty levels of the individual test items cover the whole capacity spectrum of students in pre-registration physiotherapy education.
For this observational cross-sectional measurement properties study a convenience sample of 69 undergraduate pre-registration physiotherapy students of the HES-SO Valais-Wallis was recruited. Participants were instructed to perform a task procedure on a simulated patient. The performance was evaluated with the APSPT. A conditional maximum likelihood approach was used to estimate the parameters of a partial credit model for polytomous item responses. Item fit, ordering of thresholds, targeting and goodness of fit to the Rasch model was assessed.
Item fit statistics showed that 25 items of the APSPT showed adequate fit to the Rasch model. Disordering of item thresholds did not occur and the targeting of the APSPT was adequate to measure the abilities of the included participants. Undimensionality and subgroup homogeneity were confirmed.
This study presented evidence for the structural validity of the APSPT. Undimensionality of the APSPT was confirmed and therefore presents evidence that the latent dimension of procedural skills in physiotherapy education consists of several subcategories. However, the results should be interpreted with caution given the small sample size.
操作技能是未来物理治疗师培训中的关键要素。操作技能与适当运动技能的习得相关，这些技能能确保临床操作安全地应用于患者。为了评估物理治疗教育中的操作技能，需要经过验证的评估工具。最近开发了物理治疗教育操作技能评估（APSPT）工具。本研究的总体目标是确定APSPT的结构效度。为此，研究了以下目标：i）APSPT项目与拉施模型的拟合度；ii）总分与拉施模型的拟合度；iii）每个测试项目的难度；iv）各个测试项目的难度水平是否涵盖了注册前物理治疗教育学生的整个能力范围。
对于这项观察性横断面测量属性研究，招募了瑞士西部应用科学与艺术大学瓦莱州-瓦利斯分校69名本科注册前物理治疗专业学生的便利样本。参与者被要求在模拟患者身上执行一项任务程序。使用APSPT对其表现进行评估。采用条件最大似然法估计多分类项目反应的部分计分模型参数。评估项目拟合度、阈值排序、目标定位以及与拉施模型的拟合优度。
项目拟合统计表明，APSPT的25个项目与拉施模型拟合良好。未出现项目阈值紊乱，APSPT的目标定位足以测量纳入参与者的能力。确认了单维性和亚组同质性。
本研究为APSPT的结构效度提供了证据。确认了APSPT的单维性，因此表明物理治疗教育中操作技能的潜在维度由几个子类别组成。然而鉴于样本量较小，对结果的解释应谨慎。
