Exploring registered nurses’ attitudes towards post graduate education in Australia-instrument development

Background: Nursing education is designed to prepare competent nurses to meet the current and future health care needs of society. Changes to nursing education, especially at post graduate level, will therefore likely be influenced by the on-going developments in healthcare and socio-economic factors. Objective: The primary objective of this study is to develop and validate an instrument that explores the beliefs of Registered Nurses about Postgraduate education in the context of specialist nursing practice in Australia (specialty education). Methods: The Nurses' Attitudes Towards Post Graduate Education (NATPGE) instrument was sent to an expert panel to undertake judgment-quantification (content validity testing). Content Validity Index (CVI) based on expert ratings of relevance was used as a method of quantifying content validity for the NATPGE instrument. A convenience sample of 25 registered nurses was selected from four major Queensland tertiary hospitals to assess the face validity of the instrument. A random sample of 100 registered nurses from the Nurses and Midwives e-Cohort Study (NMeS) were invited to participate in test-retest procedures to assess the reliability of NATPGE overtime. The instrument was administered at two different time points, 3 weeks apart, under similar conditions. Results: Content and face validity was assessed using descriptive statistics. For the test-retest reliability, data were analysed on an item by item basis to calculate the intra-rater reliability using the weighted kappa (kw) statistic. The NATPGE instrument attained moderate test-retest reliability. 80% of the items on the instrument reached a fair to moderate agreement between the test and retest. Conclusions: There is a need for development of a robust psychometric instrument to explore Registered Nurses' AttitFull Tex