Item response theory as a method to evaluate the goodness of fit for attitudes towards interprofessional healthcare teams

Purpose: To evaluate the goodness of fit for two survey instruments that aim to assess students’ attitudes towards working in healthcare teams. Methods: Retrospective analysis of student responses to two survey instruments prior to an interdisciplinary, team-based course. IRT was utilized to evaluate the goodness of fit for the survey instruments from the responses of three cohorts of students from six healthcare disciplines. Results: 379 students completed the T-TAQ, and 388 students completed the CAP, which was developed from the RIPLS. IRT analysis indicated that the T-TAQ, as well as two of the subscales, poorly loaded onto a single construct. The CAP demonstrated good internal consistency, but upon further analysis multiple items within the tool demonstrated poor goodness of fit. Further analysis also revealed that the T-TAQ demonstrates the highest level of discriminatory ability for students who test low in terms of trait level (i.e. θ = −2), while the CAP best detects students with even lower trait levels in terms of attitudes towards working in healthcare teams (θ = −3). Conclusion: IRT should be utilized in future studies to develop better fitting instruments for evaluating attitudes towards working in interdisciplinary healthcare teams. At present, there does not appear to be a tool for educators to use that contains well fitted items for evaluating outcomes in interdisciplinary healthcare coursework.