Burrola-Mendez, Anhue Yohali
(2020)
Development of International Assessment Tools for Evaluating the Competency of Wheelchair Service Providers: Establishment of psychometric evidence of a basic knowledge test and a self-assessment questionnaire of provision skills.
Doctoral Dissertation, University of Pittsburgh.
(Unpublished)
Abstract
The limited training of wheelchair service providers has been associated with inappropriate wheelchair service provision. The World Health Organization (WHO) developed the Guidelines on the provision of manual wheelchairs and a series of Wheelchair Service Training Packages to support the training of personnel; the International Society of Wheelchair Professionals (ISWP) developed the ISWP Basic Test to assess wheelchair service knowledge. In terms of assessment of skills, there are currently no tools that evaluate all wheelchair service provision skills. The purpose of this dissertation was 1) the revision, evaluation, and update of the ISWP Basic Test to develop a new version; and 2) the development and establishment of psychometric evidence of a self-assessment questionnaire of basic wheelchair service skills.
Objective 1. We analyzed 943 successful first attempts of the ISWP Basic Test from 2015-2020. Passing rates and the questions’ performance were obtained: item difficulty (p-values), and index of discrimination (IDIs). The questions that did not meet cutoffs were reviewed by an international group of stakeholders resulting in dropping 33 questions (22.7%), updating 112 (77.2%), and adding 61 new questions. The new set of questions was pilot tested by a group of 80 participants and the results indicated 61 (35.26%) met the p-values and IDI criteria, 62 (35.8%) met one of the criteria, and 50 (28.9%) did not meet both criteria. The pilot testing design and the sample analyzed led to expanding the cutoffs and retaining more questions.
Objective 2. A self-reported survey of 31 questions was designed and pilot tested with a group of Physical Therapy and Occupational Therapy students. The exploratory factorial analysis indicated that 5 factors explained 75.7% of the total variability of the scale. Items were grouped considering the factor load matrix; all of them had a Cronbach’s alpha above 0.85. Results from the Spearman correlation indicated a strong, statistically significant positive association between times.
This work contributes to the development of international assessment tools to evaluate competency in wheelchair service providers, a sector's priority action to develop a competent workforce, and support good practice.
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Details
| Item Type: |
University of Pittsburgh ETD
|
| Status: |
Unpublished |
| Creators/Authors: |
|
| ETD Committee: |
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| Date: |
8 September 2020 |
| Date Type: |
Publication |
| Defense Date: |
14 August 2020 |
| Approval Date: |
8 September 2020 |
| Submission Date: |
30 August 2020 |
| Access Restriction: |
1 year -- Restrict access to University of Pittsburgh for a period of 1 year. |
| Number of Pages: |
88 |
| Institution: |
University of Pittsburgh |
| Schools and Programs: |
School of Health and Rehabilitation Sciences > Rehabilitation Science and Technology |
| Degree: |
PhD - Doctor of Philosophy |
| Thesis Type: |
Doctoral Dissertation |
| Refereed: |
Yes |
| Uncontrolled Keywords: |
wheelchairs, training, WHO, psychometrics, disability |
| Date Deposited: |
08 Sep 2020 14:29 |
| Last Modified: |
08 Sep 2021 05:15 |
| URI: |
http://d-scholarship.pitt.edu/id/eprint/39686 |
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