Applying psychometric principles to the development of a training needs analysis questionnaire for use with health visitors, district and practice nurses

Abstract

Much health service research relies on the use of questionnaires, some of which are poorly constructed and therefore have the potential for yielding unreliable databases¹ . The application of the formal principles of psychometrics to questionnaire design can eliminate many of these problems. This paper reports the development of a training needs analysis tool following some of these essential parameters. The overall aim of the exercise was to identify the nature and extent of the training and education required by health visitors, practice and district nurses in a range of occupational areas, but with specific reference to research competencies. The results demonstrated that within the domain of post-basic training needs, there is a need to employ data collection techniques which go beyond the standard wish-list approach typically adopted, and to use, instead, questionnaires which embrace some of the guiding principles of psychometric science. In this way, educational provision can be more reliably informed and limited budgets more systematically targeted.