Assessment of US Paramedic Professionalism: A Psychometric Appraisal

L Michael Bowen, Brett Williams Department of Community Emergency Health and Paramedic Practice, Monash University, Melbourne, AustraliaCorrespondence: Brett WilliamsDepartment of Community Emergency Health and Paramedic Practice, Monash University, Melbourne, AustraliaEmail brett.williams@monash.ed...

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Main Authors: Bowen LM, Williams B
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: Dove Medical Press 2020-01-01
Series:Advances in Medical Education and Practice
Subjects:
Online Access:https://www.dovepress.com/assessment-of-us-paramedic-professionalism-a-psychometric-appraisal-peer-reviewed-article-AMEP
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author Bowen LM
Williams B
author_facet Bowen LM
Williams B
author_sort Bowen LM
collection DOAJ
description L Michael Bowen, Brett Williams Department of Community Emergency Health and Paramedic Practice, Monash University, Melbourne, AustraliaCorrespondence: Brett WilliamsDepartment of Community Emergency Health and Paramedic Practice, Monash University, Melbourne, AustraliaEmail brett.williams@monash.eduIntroduction: Professionalism is an essential behavior for paramedic students to demonstrate. In the United States, paramedic accreditation standards require educators to evaluate and document summative affective evaluation on each paramedic student before graduation. The 2009 Emergency Medical Services Education Standards identified the affective behaviors as one of the three learning domains and published a grading tool to help educators recognize professional behaviors. However, little attention was given to the validity or reliability of this tool. Therefore, the aim of this study was to evaluate the psychometric properties of the 5-point Paramedic Affective Domain Tool.Methods: This was a retrospective study with educators that completed evaluations on paramedic students from May 2013 to January 2017. A total of 707 cases met inclusion criteria and 131 unique evaluators from 27 different paramedic programs. A Rasch Partial Credit Model was used to analyze the data.Results: Almost 97% of the paramedic students received passing scores and 28.1% (n=199) received perfect scores. Only 3.5% (n=25) failed the evaluation. Scores ranged from 11 to 55 (M = 46, SD = 9.02) and α = 0.97. Evidence suggests that the tool is not valid and the clustering of scores suggests minimal information can be gleaned from the results.Conclusion: Serious consideration should be made in the continued use of this tool and future research should focus on developing a new tool that is both valid and reliable.Keywords: allied health personnel, paramedic, professionalism
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spelling doaj.art-336f7e08e1e74fa0ba887e5fce28ee482022-12-21T20:26:02ZengDove Medical PressAdvances in Medical Education and Practice1179-72582020-01-01Volume 11919851379Assessment of US Paramedic Professionalism: A Psychometric AppraisalBowen LMWilliams BL Michael Bowen, Brett Williams Department of Community Emergency Health and Paramedic Practice, Monash University, Melbourne, AustraliaCorrespondence: Brett WilliamsDepartment of Community Emergency Health and Paramedic Practice, Monash University, Melbourne, AustraliaEmail brett.williams@monash.eduIntroduction: Professionalism is an essential behavior for paramedic students to demonstrate. In the United States, paramedic accreditation standards require educators to evaluate and document summative affective evaluation on each paramedic student before graduation. The 2009 Emergency Medical Services Education Standards identified the affective behaviors as one of the three learning domains and published a grading tool to help educators recognize professional behaviors. However, little attention was given to the validity or reliability of this tool. Therefore, the aim of this study was to evaluate the psychometric properties of the 5-point Paramedic Affective Domain Tool.Methods: This was a retrospective study with educators that completed evaluations on paramedic students from May 2013 to January 2017. A total of 707 cases met inclusion criteria and 131 unique evaluators from 27 different paramedic programs. A Rasch Partial Credit Model was used to analyze the data.Results: Almost 97% of the paramedic students received passing scores and 28.1% (n=199) received perfect scores. Only 3.5% (n=25) failed the evaluation. Scores ranged from 11 to 55 (M = 46, SD = 9.02) and α = 0.97. Evidence suggests that the tool is not valid and the clustering of scores suggests minimal information can be gleaned from the results.Conclusion: Serious consideration should be made in the continued use of this tool and future research should focus on developing a new tool that is both valid and reliable.Keywords: allied health personnel, paramedic, professionalismhttps://www.dovepress.com/assessment-of-us-paramedic-professionalism-a-psychometric-appraisal-peer-reviewed-article-AMEPallied health personnelparamedicprofessionalism
spellingShingle Bowen LM
Williams B
Assessment of US Paramedic Professionalism: A Psychometric Appraisal
Advances in Medical Education and Practice
allied health personnel
paramedic
professionalism
title Assessment of US Paramedic Professionalism: A Psychometric Appraisal
title_full Assessment of US Paramedic Professionalism: A Psychometric Appraisal
title_fullStr Assessment of US Paramedic Professionalism: A Psychometric Appraisal
title_full_unstemmed Assessment of US Paramedic Professionalism: A Psychometric Appraisal
title_short Assessment of US Paramedic Professionalism: A Psychometric Appraisal
title_sort assessment of us paramedic professionalism a psychometric appraisal
topic allied health personnel
paramedic
professionalism
url https://www.dovepress.com/assessment-of-us-paramedic-professionalism-a-psychometric-appraisal-peer-reviewed-article-AMEP
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