Nursing students' self assessment of professional competence scale' validity and reliability

Ülker, T. Nursing Students' Self-Assessment of Professional Competence Scale' Validity and Reliability, Hacettepe University Graduate School of Health Sciences, Fundamentals of Nursing Program, Master Thesis, Ankara, 2018. This study was conducted methodologically to determine the developed scale's validity and reliability for assessment of nursing students competency level. The study consisted of 335 nursing students enrolled at Hacettepe University Faculty of Nursing. The study carried out for Turkish adaptation, validity and reliability analyses of The Competency Inventory of Nursing Students – CINS consisted of 43 item. In order to ensure the validity; the scale was translated from English to Turkish and Turkish to English by experts, later final checks were provided by Turkish and English experts. For the content validity of the scale and sub-dimensions 5 experts were consulted and the required corrections were provided to ensure the content validity of the scale. Exploratory Factor Analysis and Confirmatory Factor Analysis were used in order to ensure the construct validity. KMO= 0.969 and Bartlett's test for sphericity was found as p<0,05. As a result the scale consisted of 6 sub factors like the original scale and those factors explained 73.48% of the total variance. Compliance indices in Confirmatory Factor Analysis were X2/ df= 2.021, CFI=0, 943, RMSEA value 0.055 indicated good compliance level. The Cronbach's alpha coefficient was calculated to provide reliability analysis of the scale, sub-dimensions' values were found between 0,799 and 0,974 and the total value was 0,978, which indicated high reliability. After the Split Half method, the Spearman Brown coefficient was found to be 0.907 and the correlation between the two sections was found to be 0.829. As a result of the corrected item total correlation's values ranged from 0.339 to 0.836 and no item was extracted. In conclusion, scale was determined as valid and reliable tool which evaluates the professional competence of nursing students, contributes to the professional development with feedbacks, and enables the educators to evaluate the competency of the learners in Turkish population. Keywords: Nursing students, competency, the competency inventory of nursing students, validity and reliability