Just as nursing practice must be grounded in evidence, so too must the teaching and learning process in nursing education be supported empirically (National League for Nursing [NLN], 2016). Thus, it is imperative that nurse educators grow a body of evidence to support teaching and learning in nursing education (NLN, 2016). Since nursing students are the sole participants in nursing education research, in order to develop such evidence, it is imperative that nursing education researchers have access to nursing students as willing participants in empirical studies to develop and support evidence-based teaching. While students’ attitudes about nursing research are generally positive (Bjorkstrom, Johansson, Hamrin, & Athlin, 2003; Brooke, Hvalic-Touzery, & Skela-Savic, 2015; Halabi, 2016; Toraman, Hamaratcilar, Tulu, & Erkin, 2017), little is known about their attitudes toward nursing education research or participating in nursing education research as subjects. Many nurse researchers have developed tools to assess nursing students’ attitudes towards nursing research (Bjorkstrom et al., 2003; Keib, Cailor, Kiersma, & Chen, 2017; Unver, Semerci, Ozkan, & Avcibasi, 2017); however no instruments exist to measure nursing students’ attitudes toward nursing education research or participation in nursing education research as a subject. An important step in addressing this gap in knowledge about nursing students’ attitudes toward nursing education research is to develop an instrument to measure this concept. The purpose of this study was to develop and test the validity and reliability of the Nursing Students’ Attitudes towards Nursing Education Research Questionnaire (NSANERQ).
Methods:
The 25-item NSANERQ was adapted from Bjorkstrom et al.’s (2003) Nursing Students’ Attitudes and Awareness of Research and Development in Nursing Scale that measured nursing students’ attitudes toward nursing research. The psychometric properties of the NSANERQ were assessed in two phases. In phase one, the tool was initially assessed for content validity through evaluation by three experts in nursing education research. Each expert individually rated each item’s relevance to nursing education research on a four-point scale. Changes were made to the NSANERQ based on the results of the initial content validity and the revised version was evaluated by five nursing education research experts. In phase two, psychometric testing of the NSANERQ took place at a mid-sized private university in the Northeastern United States. A total of 203 baccalaureate nursing students participated in this prospective quantitative study: 156 participated in internal consistency testing, and 48 participated in test-retest evaluation. For test-retest reliability, data were collected two weeks apart. Data were analyzed using Chronbach’s alpha for internal consistency and Pearson’s correlations for test-retest reliability.
Results:
Initial scale-content validity (S-CVI) was low at 0.76. After revision, the final version of the NSANERQ demonstrated excellent S-CVI (0.92) with all items demonstrating excellent item-content validity (0.8-1.0). The NSANERQ demonstrated high internal consistency (α=0.88), and acceptable test-retest reliability (r=0.71) over two-weeks.
Conclusion:
The NSANERQ is a valid and reliable instrument that can be used to describe and evaluate changes in nursing students’ attitudes toward nursing education research. Additional psychometric testing is warranted to evaluate validity and reliability in other populations of nursing students.