Developing and Evaluating the Psychometric Properties of the Pediatric Nursing Competency Scale for Nursing Students.

ABSTRACT

AIM: This study aims to develop and evaluate the psychometric properties of the Pediatric Nursing Competency Scale for nursing students. METHODS: This study was conducted with 318 nursing students, including third-year students enrolled in a pediatric nursing course and fourth-year students completing a pediatric nursing internship. Factor analysis, Cronbach's alpha, item-total score analysis, and known-groups comparison were used to assess the research data. In total, 16 items were eliminated from the scale on the basis of experts' recommendations. RESULTS: The scale consisted of 39 items and 8 sub-scales. The 8 sub-scales exhibited 66.4% of the total variance. Both exploratory factor analysis and confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) revealed that all factor loads were greater than 0.40. The CFA also revealed that all of the fit indices were greater than 0.85, and the root mean square error of approximation was less than 0.08. Cronbach's alpha was 0.96 for the entire scale, and greater than 0.80 for all sub-scales. CONCLUSION: The Pediatric Nursing Competency Scale for nursing students was found to be valid and reliable.