title: Occupational therapy students rating the social profile of their educational group: do they agree?
abstract: BACKGROUND
  During the curriculum, occupational therapy students learn to administer a range of assessment procedures. Interrater agreement between occupational therapy students' ratings of group functioning has not yet been examined.
  
  
  OBJECTIVE
  To examine the interrater agreement within groups of students' ratings using the Social Profile.
  
  
  METHODS
  The Social Profile assesses the social interaction behaviours in activity groups, and 35 students completed the measure. Two methods of obtaining an overall Social Profile score were explored. Intraclass correlation coefficients (ICC) were calculated to assess the level of agreement within groups of raters.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Social interaction in the study groups occurred more frequently within the basic cooperative level. There was substantial agreement within groups of raters on this level, whereas there was low to moderate agreement on the other four levels. The weighted method of obtaining an overall Social Profile score showed higher ICC than the simpler method.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  It appears to be easier to reach high interrater agreement when considering frequently occurring behaviours in a group. The weighted method of obtaining an overall Social Profile score showed the best ICC results and should preferably be used in future studies where an overall measure is sought.
authors.affiliation: a Department of Occupational Therapy, Prosthetics and Orthotics, Faculty of Health Sciences , Oslo and Akershus University College of Applied Sciences , Oslo , Norway ;
authors.forename: Tore
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Bonsaksen
authors.affiliation: b New York University (Retired) , New York , USA ;
authors.forename: Mary V
authors.initials: MV
authors.lastname: Donohue
authors.affiliation: c American Telephone & Telegraph, (Retired) , New Jersey , USA.
authors.forename: Robert Malcolm
authors.initials: RM
authors.lastname: Milligan
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D003299:Cooperative Behavior; D005260:Female; D006126:Group Processes; D006801:Humans; D007398:Interpersonal Relations; D008297:Male; D009788:Occupational Therapy / Q000193:education*; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D012963:Sociometric Techniques; D013334:Students; D055815:Young Adult
keywords: Assessment; group work; interrater reliability; intraclass correlation coefficient; social participation; social profile; students