Quality of Instruments Used to Assess Competencies in Athletic Training

Context: An emphasis on knowledge and skill competency acquisition continues to gain importance in allied health professions. Accuracy and fairness in the summative assessment of competencies are essential to ensure student competence. A positive demonstration of validity, reliability, and authentic quality criteria are needed to achieve evidence-based practice considerations in the assessment of competencies.

Objective: To present a variety of instruments used in the assessment of competencies established in the fifth edition of the athletic training competencies document and judge them based on validity, reliability, and authenticity criteria.

Data Sources: Literature reviewed for this article included published articles pertaining to the assessment of competencies used in health care professional programs.

Data Synthesis: Self, written, and observation assessment methods with specific types of instruments for each category are used in the summative assessment of competencies. Quality of the assessment instruments are considered to ensure score authenticity, validity, and reliability of measures. The type of assessment instrument and its content was recommended depending on the level of competence, which was categorized according to the depth of understanding and complexity of skill in the competencies.

Conclusions: There was no one-size-fits-all assessment method determined. Certain instruments demonstrated greater quality than others and were used depending on assessment goals and resources.