Measuring Team-Based Interprofessional Education Outcomes in Clinical Dentistry: Psychometric Evaluation of a New Scale at an Australian Dental School

Abstract

PURPOSE/OBJECTIVES: The literature on interprofessional education (IPE) assessment revealed the need to evaluate the influence of interprofessional teams-based processes on the quality of clinical dental education. This study aimed to develop a valid and reliable instrument to evaluate the effectiveness of interprofessional teams-based treatment planning (TBTP) on the quality of clinical dental education received at the Griffith University School of Dentistry and Oral Health (DOH). METHODS: In this study, a scale was developed and evaluated to measure 'interprofessional student team processes' and the 'quality of clinical dental education' received amongst dentistry, oral health therapy and dental technology undergraduate students. A face validity analysis by IPE experts confirmed that items within the scale reflected the meaning of relevant concepts. After piloting, 158 undergraduate students (61% response rate) involved with TBTP participated. RESULTS: An exploratory factor analysis using the principal component method retained twenty-three items with a total variance of 64.6% suggesting high content validity. Three subscales accounted for 45.7%, 11.4% and 7.5% of the variance respectively. Internal consistency of the scale (a = .943) and subscales 1 (a = .953), 2 (a = .897) and 3 (a = .813) were high. A reliability analysis yielded moderate (rs = 0.43) to high correlations (0.81) with the remaining scale items. Confirmatory factor analyses verified convergent validity and confirmed that this structure has a good model fit. CONCLUSION: This instrument might be useful in evaluating 'interprofessional teams-based processes' and their influence on the 'quality of clinical dental education' received in dental educational institutions.