Background:

Assessment of health students’ attainment of cognitive and psychomotor learning outcomes is achieved through the application of well-established methods. However, for learning in the affective domain, which, in the health professions, is closely associated with the development of ‘professionalism’, assessment remains challenging as there is a dearth of validated, reliable and practical tools available. The aim of this study was to develop and test the reliability of an instrument assess for evidence of affective learning in the reflective journals of health professional students who have participated in emotionally-impactive learning experiences.

Method:

Based on the findings of our earlier published work on the assessment of affective learning (Rogers, Mey & Chan, 2017), we developed a practical tool known as the Griffith University Affective Learning Scale (GUALS). We trained a pool of learning facilitators in the assessment of affective learning and the use of the instrument. Two facilitators, in parallel, independently graded each of the daily journals of 26 medical students undertaking a week-long immersive simulation activity. Assessors were asked to rate the highest level of affective learning evident in each journal. Statistical analysis explored score distribution, means and inter-rater differences.

Results:

One hundred and twenty-five journal entries (five from each of 25 students – one selected student had missing journals and was thus excluded from the analysis) were rated by a total of seven trained facilitators. Scores were normally distributed, with a mean of 4.23 (SD = 1.10) on a seven-point scale. Inter-rater absolute score concordance was seen for 45.6% of the journals, with a mean inter-rater difference of 0.56 points, maximum difference of 2.00 points and intraclass correlation coefficient of 0.86 (95% Cl: 0.80 – 0.90).

Conclusions:

GUALS, when utilised by trained assessors, appears to be a reliable tool to assess for evidence of affective learning in medical students’ journals related to emotionally-impactive simulated clinical experiences. Further research should explore its utilisation in relation to other learning experiences such as real clinical setting encounters, as well as with students from other health professions and in other settings where the assessment of affective learning is important.