A Confirmatory Factor Analysis of the Student Evidence-Based Practice Questionnaire (S-EBPQ) in an Australian sample

Background: It is crucial that nursing students develop skills and confidence in using Evidence-Based Practice principles early in their education. This should be assessed with valid tools however, to date, few measures have been developed and applied to the student population. Objective: To examine the structural validity of the Student Evidence-Based Practice Questionnaire (S-EBPQ), with an Australian online nursing student cohort. Design: A cross-sectional study for constructing validity. Participants and Method: Three hundred and forty-five undergraduate nursing students from an Australian regional university were recruited across two semesters. Confirmatory Factor Analysis was used to examine the structural validity. Results: Confirmatory Factor Analysis was applied which resulted in a good fitting model, based on a revised 20 item tool. Conclusions: The S-EBPQ tool remains a psychometrically robust measure of evidence-based practice use, attitudes, and knowledge and skills and can be applied in an online Australian student context. The findings of this study provided further evidence of the reliability and four factor structure of the S-EBPQ. Opportunities for further refinement of the tool may result in improvements in structural validity.