Collecting validity evidence for an assessment of professionalism: findings from think-aloud interviews.
BACKGROUND
This study investigated whether participants' subjective reports of how they assigned ratings on a multisource feedback instrument provide evidence to support interpreting the resulting scores as objective, accurate measures of professional behavior.


METHODS
Twenty-six participants completed think-aloud interviews while rating students, residents, or faculty members they had worked with previously. The items rated included 15 behavioral items and one global item.


RESULTS
Participants referred to generalized behaviors and global impressions six times as often as specific behaviors, rated observees in the absence of information necessary to do so, relied on indirect evidence about performance, and varied in how they interpreted items.


CONCLUSIONS
Behavioral change becomes difficult to address if it is unclear what behaviors raters considered when providing feedback. These findings highlight the importance of explicitly stating and empirically investigating the assumptions that underlie the use of an observational assessment tool.
Mazor
Kathleen M
KM
Kathleen.mazor@umassmed.edu
Canavan
Colleen
C
Farrell
Margaret
M
Margolis
Melissa J
MJ
Clauser
Brian E
BE
D030141:Feedback, Psychological; D006801:Humans; D007396:Internship and Residency; D007407:Interviews as Topic; D007721:Knowledge of Results, Psychological; D015588:Observer Variation; D010372:Pediatrics / Q000193:education*; D011361:Professional Competence; D036301:Qualitative Research; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D012919:Social Behavior