Undergraduate Students’ Perceptions of and Attitudes Toward a Simulation-Based Interprofessional Curriculum

INTRODUCTION: Existing attitude scales on interprofessional education (IPE) focus on students' attitudes toward the concepts of teamwork and opportunities for IPE but fail to examine student perceptions of the learning modality that also plays an important role in the teaching and learning process. The purpose of this present study was to test the psychometric characteristics of the KidSIM Attitude Towards Teamwork in Training Undergoing Designed Educational Simulation (ATTITUDES) questionnaire developed to measure student perceptions of and attitudes toward IPE, teamwork, and simulation as a learning modality. METHODS: A total of 196 medical, nursing, and respiratory therapy students received a 3-hour IPE curriculum module that focused on 2 simulation-based team training scenarios in emergency and intensive care unit settings. Each multiprofessional group of students completed the 30-item ATTITUDES questionnaire before participating in the IPE curriculum and the same questionnaire again as a posttest on completion of the high-fidelity simulation, team-based learning sessions. RESULTS: The internal reliability of the ATTITUDES questionnaire was α = 0.95. The factor analysis supports a 5-factor solution accounting for 61.6% of the variance: communication (8 items), relevance of IPE (7 items), relevance of simulation (5 items), roles and responsibilities (6 items), and situation awareness (4 items). Aggregated and profession-specific analysis of students' responses using paired sample t tests showed significant differences from the pretest to the posttest for all questionnaire items and subscale measures (P < 0.001). CONCLUSIONS: The KidSIM ATTITUDES questionnaire provides a reliable and construct valid measure of student perceptions of and attitudes toward IPE, teamwork, and simulation as a learning modality.