Measurement Properties of the Interdisciplinary Education Perception Scale in an Australian Allied Health Student Cohort

Purpose

Measurement of interprofessional practice perceptions of students is commonplace in the health professions education literature. There are a range of questionnaires available for researchers to use however the psychometric properties of these vary substantially. The Interdisciplinary Education Perception Scale (IEPS) has been widely used and multiple researchers have published alternative factor structures. The present study sought to build on this work by evaluating the psychometric properties of the IEPS using Rasch analysis.

Method

Three-hundred and nineteen students in two Australian osteopathy programs completed the IEPS as part of a larger project into interprofessional education. The measurement properties of the questionnaire were evaluated using Rasch analysis and reliability estimations were also generated for the IEPS.

Results

Fit to the Rasch model was achieved by modifying the original 18 item scale, however this was not unidimensional. Subsequent analysis using an alternative factor structure from the literature achieved Rasch model fit and was unidimensional. The final model produced an eight item version of the IEPS (IEPS8) with appropriate psychometric properties, including the ability to create a valid total score.

Discussion

The questionnaire developed as a result of the Rasch analysis provides researchers with a short, psychometrically sound measure of perceptions of their own profession and how their profession works with others. The results also provide an opportunity to explore perceptions pre-post intervention IPE interventions using an interval-scale measure compared to an ordinal one. Researchers are encouraged to utilise this version of the IEPS in future research as it has the potential to be able to discriminate between levels of perception of their own profession and how their profession works with others.