Reliability and validity of the occupational therapy attribute scale

The Occupational Therapy Attribute Scale (OTAS) was developed as a systematic, valid, and reliable tool for use as a formative and summative assessment of occupational therapy (OT) student professional behavior during level II fieldwork. The purpose of this study was to investigate the validity and reliability of the OTAS as a summative assessment for level II fieldwork. Items were created by OT clinical educators during focus groups. Internal consistency (reliability) was tested using Cronbach's alpha. The resulting Fieldwork Evaluation coefficients ranged from 0.98 to 0.99; OTAS coefficients ranged from 0.91 to 0.96. A principal components exploratory factor analysis with varimax rotation yielded three factors: judgment/clinical reasoning, professional communication, and organization and time management. External construct validity was tested using Pearson correlation; the results indicated a strong (r = 0.74) degree of consistency between the Fieldwork Evaluation, the gold standard, and the OTAS. The sensitivity of the OTAS was 0.94, suggesting the OTAS is able to identify OT students who would be hired. The authors conclude that the OTAS is a reliable and valid measure of professional behavior of OT students on level II fieldwork.