Assessment of the Readiness for Interprofessional Learning Scale (RIPLS): An item response theory analysis

Abstract

This short report aims to bring evidence from modern psychometric methods to bear on a popularly deployed questionnaire in interprofessional education (IPE) assessment. Specifically, three interrelated problems raised against the Readiness for Interprofessional Learning Scale (RIPLS) are examined in a study with 280 medical and nursing student participants. Firstly, findings support RIPLS overall reliability, but fail to support subscale reliabilities. Secondly, findings indicate a strong, general factor underlying the RIPLS that supports unidimensional interpretations. Thirdly, findings support the RIPLS potential sensitivity to changes with appropriate lower ranges for our pre-training student sample. Recommendations for refinement to the RIPLS include: use of more appropriate reliability indices; factor generalizability; and a subset of items. More generally, refinement is possible, whereas RIPLS disuse or continued misuse with problematic scales is likely to hinder progress in the field of IPE.

Interprofessional education in geriatric medicine: towards best practice. A controlled before–after study of medical and nursing students

“…The limitations of this study include the use of RIPLS scale, and known concerns about it27 33 60–62 prompted the use of the modified scale. In the meantime further development and validation of instruments to measure the variety of IP competencies related to IPE continued, giving more options to the researchers compared with the time of planning and conducting our study, and in 2017 a global consensus was reached on IP learning outcomes, as well as guidance on the purpose of the assessments in IPE 34 63…”

The development and psychometric evaluation of an interprofessional identity measure: Extended Professional Identity Scale (EPIS)

“…This scale is especially focused on attitudes and is often used in interprofessional research (Parsell & Bligh, 1999). Even though the RIPLS is translated into different languages and applied worldwide (Mahler et al, 2016), it is also a problematic scale (Kerry, Wang, & Bai, 2018;Mahler, Berger, & Reeves, 2015). Especially the subscales negative and positive identity suffer from low reliability and evidence of its validity is weak (Mahler et al, 2015).…”

“…Especially the subscales negative and positive identity suffer from low reliability and evidence of its validity is weak (Mahler et al, 2015). For these reasons it has been recommended to refine the RIPLS (Kerry et al, 2018) or not to use the RIPLS at all (Mahler et al, 2015;Schmitz & Brandt, 2015). So far, no measurement instrument exists that measures interprofessionaal identity as superordinate to a subordinate professional identity and which consists of three interrelated social identity characteristics: interprofessional belonging, interprofessional commitment and interprofessional beliefs.…”

Bifactor model of the CASP-12’s general factor for measuring quality of life in older patients

“…Since the early, 1990’s days of QoL research, investigators have generally agreed that physical, mental, and social health subdomains are inseparable, that is, QoL is a fairly broad construct [7]. As mentioned in this author’s earlier IRT evaluation of another health measure– “broader constructs are stabilized with broad factors” [8]. As the CASP’s author reassures researchers that “those who simply require a single index” may sum the CASP-12, it is important to first-determine if unidimensional usage in prediction models is reasonably unbiased by ignoring subdomains.…”