Development and validation of an instrument to assess the self- confidence of students enrolled in the advanced pharmacy practice experience

American Journal of Pharmaceutical Education, Spring 2002 by Wongwiwatthananukit, Supakit, Newton, Gail D, Popovich, Nicholas G

Step 3: Pilot Test of the Instrument

Purpose. To explore the subscale/factor structure of the 74item developed instrument and to further reduce items for the developed instrument.

Subjects. Subjects consisted of a convenience sample of 260 fourth professional year PharmD students from six schools/colleges of pharmacy (i.e., four public and two private colleges/schools) participating in experiential rotations during spring 2000 (i.e., April 1 to May 10, 2000). To mirror the national statistics of all 81 colleges/schools of pharmacy in the U.S. (i.e., 57 public and 24 private colleges/schools, a ratio of 2.3:1.0)(18), the ratio of four public and two private colleges/schools (i.e., 2:1) was chosen for this step. The experiential coordinators and/or pharmacy deans at each of the six colleges/schools were contacted via email and asked to participate in the pilot step of this study. Specifically, they were asked if they would be willing to volunteer their enrolled clerkship students during the spring 2000 to complete the instrument. All six colleges/schools of pharmacy agreed to participate and indicated no anticipated problems with gathering data from the students on this study.

Social Desirability Scale. Because the developed instrument was a personality variable(19), there was concern about the possible biasing effect of social desirability. Thus, the short version of the Marlowe-Crowne Social Desirability Scale (MCSDS)(20) was included with the developed instrument so that it could be used as an external criterion for item selection. The internal consistency coefficient of the MCSDS using a Kuder-Richardson 20 formula was 0.76. The MCSDS reflected an individual's tendency to respond to scale items in a socially desirable direction. Each of the 74 items for the developed instrument was correlated with scores on the social desirability scale. It was decided that items that significantly correlated with it would be deleted from the instrument. Spector suggested that by using external criteria in item selection, an instrument was more likely to be free of the social desirability bias(21). That is, responses to the instrument would be unaffected by the social desirability of respondents.

Procedures. A faculty coordinator at each of the six colleges/schools of pharmacy received and administered the 74item Clerkship Student Self-Confidence Assessment Instrument, a student demographic form, and the short form of the MCSDS to participating students. Students were informed that the returned responses to the instruments were treated anonymously and would have no bearing on their clerkship grade and graduation. The investigators worked with each faculty coordinator to determine the number of instruments needed and when and how the instruments would be collected (i.e., either completed survey were returned directly to the investigators in a self-addressed stamped business reply mail or returned directly to the experiential coordinators who then mailed completed surveys back in bulk to the investigators).