Development and validity of an intermediate conceptual measurement (ICM) -based measurement tool for the nursing professional values of undergraduate students.

ABSTRACT

BACKGROUND: Nursing professional values are the foundation of nursing practice. There has been no research to develop an instrument to measure professional values in nursing based on intermediate conceptual measurement theory. OBJECTIVES: To develop an ICM-based measurement tool for the nursing professional values of undergraduate students. DESIGN: A cross-sectional study. METHODS: The Nursing Professional Values-Intermediate Conceptual Measurement (NPV-ICM) was developed using the steps of Cunningham's process to generate questionnaire items. The tool was devised in three stages identifying the intermediate concepts, developing stories reflecting the intermediate concepts and setting up options for action and justification in the stories and setting up scoring criteria for the measurement tool. The tool was tested through internal consistency reliability, content validity and calibration correlation validity. RESULTS: This study resulted in five nursing professional values situational stories containing five themes (care, altruism, responsibility, respect and justice) respectively. Each situational story contained a varying number of action options and justification options, totalling 72 Richter 5 level options and 20 ranked items. Reliability and validity were found to be good, with a total Cronbach's α of 0.93 and Cronbach's α of 0.75-0.80 for each situational story and calibrated correlational validity was found to correlate significantly between the total Nursing Professional Values Scale Revised (NPVS-R) scores and the NPV-ICM. CONCLUSIONS: The NPV-ICM created in this study possesses high reliability and validity. It alters the values perception research, moving from abstract conceptual measurements to measurements of particular values actions and justifications for participation in activities. And the study presents preliminary evidence supporting the reliability of the NVP-ICM as a measure of professional values.