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Access Type

WSU Access

Date of Award

January 2023

Degree Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Ed.D.

Department

Education Evaluation and Research

First Advisor

Do-Hong Kim

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to (a) explore and identify the professional traits and behaviors desired of physician assistant (PA) students at the time of PA program graduation, (b) produce a set of key items reflecting these constructs for use by PA faculty during the summative phase of PA programs to provide program faculty and students with student professionalism achievement data, and (c) examine the validity of test content items for use based on internal structure of the instrument and reliability of the survey tool. A customized survey (10-factor, 32 items) was compiled and tested as a professionalism summative evaluation tool by PA program faculty to assess student professional attributes and behaviors. The sample consisted of 354 completed surveys completed from November–December 2022. The percent agreement of faculty raters on a prepilot survey test case was 0.85. Exploratory factor analysis was used to measure construct validity. Findings supported a five-factor structure, with best fit five factor, .4 item load pattern matrix. Cronbach alpha for the total instrument was 0.88, with high reliability of all four of five factors. The PA student summative evaluation professionalism pilot tool is worthy of further study toward the development of a practical assessment tool for use by PA program faculty.

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