Enhancing healthcare education: Validation of the traditional chinese EQual rubric for effective assessment of entrustable professional activities

Aim

This study evaluates the reliability and validity of the Traditional Chinese version of the EQual rubric, a vital tool for assessing the quality of Entrustable Professional Activities (EPAs) in healthcare education.

Background

The healthcare professional’s educational model increasingly emphasizes competency-based education (CBE), necessitating standardized evaluation tools. EPAs provide a framework for this approach, highlighting the need for robust assessment instruments.

Design

Utilizing a quantitative methodology, this study translated and validated the Traditional Chinese EQual rubric in the context of developing EPA programs for clinical research nurses (CRNs) and oncology nurses (ONs). Four senior CRNs and four ONs served as raters.

Methods

The research was conducted in three phases: First, the EQual rubric was translated from English to Traditional Chinese using a standardized process, followed by back-translation by two bilingual experts. A consensus meeting finalized the translation. Second, content validation involved three experts assessing the rubric’s clarity and applicability. Finally, the internal consistency reliability of the EQual rubric was evaluated with eight raters.

Results

The Traditional Chinese EQual rubric demonstrated strong content validity and acceptable inter-rater reliability, with a high scale-level content validity index indicating robust expert agreement, affirming its applicability in educational settings.

Conclusions

The successful translation and validation of the EQual rubric in Traditional Chinese establish it as a reliable assessment tool for evaluating the quality of EPAs in healthcare education, significantly contributing to CBE and underscoring the importance of culturally relevant evaluation instruments.