The Interdisciplinary Education Perception Scale (IEPS): An alternative remodelled sub-scale structure and its reliability

The original 4 sub-scale version of the Interdisciplinary Education Perception Scale (IEPS) was published by Luecht et al. (1990, Journal of Allied Health, 181 - 191). There appears however to be a lack of evidence of the stability of the original instrument and of the test-retest reliability of the items and sub-scales when used with undergraduates. Given that during its development only 143 subjects completed the questionnaire which contained 18 items the generalizability of the instrument should perhaps have been investigated further. The Interprofessional Learning Group (IPL) at Glasgow Caledonian University has been using both the IEPS and the Readiness for Interprofessional Learning Scale (RIPLS) (Parsell & Bligh, 1999, Medical Education, 33, 95 - 100) to monitor changes in attitudes and perceptions of undergraduate students from eight different health and social care programmes. This paper reports the development of an alternative sub-scale model for the IEPS based on a sample of 308 students. Various aspects of the reliability of this revised model based on a subsequent data set of 247 students are also reported. This revised model appears to be stable for use with undergraduate students yielding Cronbach Alpha values for two of the sub-scales greater than 0.80 and test-retest weighted kappa values for items being fair to moderate.