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ELTeach is an online professional development program developed by Educational Testing Service (ETS) in collaboration with National Geographic Learning. The ELTeach program consists of two courses: English-for-Teaching and Professional Knowledge for English Language Teaching (ELT). Each course includes a coordinated assessment leading to a score report and certificate for teachers of English as a foreign language (EFL).The Test of English-for-Teaching ("TEFT"™), the assessment component of the English-for-Teaching course, measures EFL teachers' command of English for teaching English in classroom settings, as presented in the course. In this study, we examined the internal structure of the TEFT assessment. Results of the analyses demonstrated the role of both skill and content in representing the test's internal structure. The final parcel model had a higher-order general factor and four first-order factors corresponding to reading, writing, listening, and speaking. The findings support the current score reporting practice, that is, to report a total scaled score along with score information on language skills and on language use in specific content areas.

Background and Purpose: Clinical reasoning for nurses is considered a valuable component of clinical nursing competencies, but there are few tools to ascertain this. This study tested the Italian Nurses Clinical Reasoning Scale (I-NCRS) psychometric properties based on Levett-Jones' theoretical clinical reasoning model. Methods: Content, face, and construct characteristics were ascertained for their validity. The study had a two-phase design: (a) content and face validity and (b) construct validity. Results: Three factors emerged from the factorial analysis of our reference sample: nursing problems of health, nursing information of health, and nursing assessment of health. Conclusions: The scale represents a valuable tool for the self-assessment of the clinical reasoning skills of nurses. I-NCRS showed evidence of validity and reliability, being also useful for assessing clinical reasoning for educational and research purposes among Italian nurses. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background and Purpose: The main aim of this study has been the psychometric validation of an Italian translation of the Nurse Professional Competence Scale-Short Form (I-NPCS-SF), testing its validity and reliability. Methods: A multiphase design was used for the I-NPCS-SF translation and psychometric validation: (a) cultural and linguistic validation, (b) content and face validity, and (c) construct validity. Results: The I-NPCS-SF showed adequate linguistic translation, cultural adaptation, and content validity. Confirmatory factor analysis supported a four-factor structure of the I-NPCS-SF, in explaining data obtained from nurses and nursing students. Conclusions: The I-NPCS-SF demonstrated evidence of validity and reliability in measuring four professional competencies. Having an appropriate tool to be applied in the Italian context for professional competence self-assessment constitutes an essential step in measuring professional competencies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Aims: To develop and validate a comprehensive tool based on those established in the field capable of reflecting the broader concept of Unfinished Nursing Care. Background: Different tools have been established in the field of Missed Care, Rationing Care and Tasks Left Undone. However, despite them sharing similar items and all referring to the common concept of Unfinished Nursing Care, no attempts to collapse them in a single tool capable of reflecting current nursing practice, and its increased complexity, have been attempted to date. Methods: A development and validation study was performed in 2017. After developing the instrument starting from the MISSCARE Survey and critically reviewing the other tools available in the field, the Unfinished Nursing Care Survey (UNCS) was subjected to validation. A total of 1977 nurses from 13 acute Italian hospitals were recruited. Acceptability, construct validity (Mokken Scaling, Explorative and Confirmative Factor Analysis), internal consistency, hypothesis testing and criterion validity were assessed according to the COnsensus‐based Standards for the selection of health Measurement INstruments guideline. Results: 1,400 (70.8%) nurses participated. The UNCS is composed of part A (=elements of unfinished care) and part B (=reasons for unfinished care) with 21 and 18 items, respectively. The UNCS has showed high acceptability (>90%). Part A has reported a strong scalability (H =.52), thus suggesting a hierarchical structure among the items. The six factors in part B explained a total variance of 64.3% (internal consistency =.806) as confirmed by the Confirmative Factor Analysis. Conclusions: The comprehensive nature of the UNCS can contribute to the establishment of a common reference measure of the phenomenon worldwide although its psychometric properties require future investigation in different cultural contexts, languages and clinical settings. Implications for Nursing Management: Measuring Unfinished Nursing Care provides information on the processes implicated in the development of adverse events before these become visible; moreover, it can increase awareness on nurses' performance and inform appropriate interventions to improve it. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Aim To develop and psychometrically test the Italian-language Nurse Caring Behaviours Scale, a short measure of nurse caring behaviour as perceived by inpatients. Background Patient perceptions of nurses' caring behaviours are a predictor of care quality. Caring behaviours are culture-specific, but no measure of patient perceptions has previously been developed in Italy. Moreover, existing tools show unclear psychometric properties, are burdensome for respondents, or are not widely applicable. Design Instrument development and psychometric testing. Method Item generation included identifying and adapting items from existing measures of caring behaviours as perceived by patients. A pool of 28 items was evaluated for face validity. Content validity indexes were calculated for the resulting 15-item scale; acceptability and clarity were pilot tested with 50 patients. To assess construct validity, a sample of 2,001 consecutive adult patients admitted to a hospital in 2014 completed the scale and was split into two groups. Reliability was evaluated using nonlinear structural equation modelling coefficients. Measurement invariance was tested across subsamples. Results Item 15 loaded poorly in the exploratory factor analysis ( n = 983) and was excluded from the final solution, positing a single latent variable with 14 indicators. This model fitted the data moderately. The confirmatory factor analysis ( n = 1018) returned similar results. Internal consistency was excellent in both subsamples. Full scalar invariance was reached, and no significant latent mean differences were detected across subsamples. Conclusion The new instrument shows reasonable psychometric properties and is a promising short and widely applicable measure of inpatient perceptions of nurse caring behaviours. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose To develop and perform reliability and validity assessments of the international Multidimensional Nursing Generations Questionnaire. Background There are three generations of nurses in the European workforce. There is little research on the characteristics of these generations and the ways in which to manage them professionally, and no instrument has yet been developed to measure these aspects specifically. Methods With results from previous studies, 69 nursing generations-oriented items were created in English, translated into Italian and Finnish, and pretested to form the basis of an instrument that was tested between September and October 2014 on a sample of Finnish and Italian nurses ( n = 1302) using principal component analysis and Cronbach's alpha. Results Fifty-four items and eight components (Cronbach's α range: 0.61-0.81) were identified in the instrument: (1) conflicts between generations; (2) patient safety view; (3) relationships between generations; (4) working as a multigenerational team; (5) orientation to change; (6) presenteeism and job propensity; (7) intention to leave, and (8) flexibility and availability. Conclusions The instrument showed acceptable preliminary psychometric properties and satisfactory internal consistency. Implications for nursing management The Multidimensional Nursing Generations Questionnaire is a useful tool to measure the characteristics of different generations of nurses and to develop management strategies tailored to those generations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Aim: This study describes the development and validation of the Nursing Profession Self ‐ Efficacy Scale. Background: Self ‐ efficacy can be useful in predicting performance, job satisfaction or well ‐ being. In the nursing field, there is a shortage of studies on self ‐ efficacy with regard to nurses’ global confidence in coping ability across a range of everyday, challenging work situations. Methods: To define the theoretical framework of nursing professional self ‐ efficacy, two focus groups and a literature review were performed. An empirical study was then conducted to test validity and reliability. Face and content validity, construct validity, concurrent validity, internal consistency and test–retest reliability were examined. The content validity index was evaluated by 12 experts who suggested deleting 11 redundant items. The final developed tool was tested for construct analysis using a cross ‐ validation approach, randomly splitting the overall sample of 917 nurses in two sub ‐ groups. Findings: The construct validity indicated two dimensions. The face and content validity were adequate. Test–retest reliability displayed a good stability, and internal consistency (Cronbach's α) was acceptable. Moreover, concurrent validity using the Generalized Self ‐ Efficacy Scale was in line with the theoretical framework. Conclusion: The scale showed evidence of validity and reliability. The major limitation is the strong influence of the Italian context in the tool development. Implications for nursing and health policy: The Nursing Profession Self ‐ Efficacy Scale could be a fruitful tool that facilitates the application of theories (i.e. social ‐ cognitive theory) in the nursing field and even development of interventions. Furthermore, a measurement of self ‐ efficacy could be used to predict nursing clinical performance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]