Constructing and validating a global student-centered nursing curriculum learning efficacy scale: A confirmatory factor analysis

Previous evidence-based studies have lacked a comprehensive student-centered scale to measure the learning efficacy of pre-registered nursing students. This study developed and validated a global scale for measuring learning efficacy among pre-registered nurses in Taiwan. Evaluated nursing courses included fundamental nursing, medical surgical nursing, maternal newborn nursing, pediatric nursing, psychiatric nursing, and community health nursing. All participants had previously completed the nursing professional curricula. This study comprised four phases, which were design of the initial study questionnaire, testing of the validity of the responses of experts to the questionnaire, exploratory factor analysis based on random sampling, and confirmatory factor analysis based on a large-scale investigation. The content validity index for the questionnaire was .89. Item analysis results yielded a Cronbach's alpha coefficient of between .90 and .92. Item-total correlation coefficients ranged from .51 to .76. The critical ratio, obtained from t-test results, ranged from 6.07 to 9.96. Exploratory factor analysis revealed that factor loadings for individual items ranged from .46 to .96, and eigenvalues ranged from 1.43 to 8.19. The three factors "learning preparation," "advancement of competency," and "learning evaluation" explained 63.5% of total factor loading. In the confirmatory factor analysis, the overall internal consistency reliability coefficient was .95; convergent reliability was .96, and convergent validity was .59. Evaluation scales demonstrated well construct validity and goodness-of-fit for the model. The comprehensive student-centered evaluation scale revealed rigorous construct validity. This scale can serve as an index of learning effectiveness in professional nursing curricula. (C) 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.