Designing and Operationalizing a Toolkit of Bilingual Interprofessional Education Assessment Instruments

Abstract

This article addresses one of the most important unresolved issues of interprofessional education (IPE): assessment. Here we describe our process and experiences designing and operationalizing a toolkit of qualitative and quantitative IPE assessment instruments for online and face-to-face education programs developed concurrently in both English and French. The toolkit includes a) the quantitative W(e)Learn program evaluation survey, which aligns with the W(e)Learn framework, b) the quantitative Interprofessional Collaborative Competencies Attainment Survey (ICCAS), to self-assess competency development in collaborative practice using a post-post design, and c) qualitative team and learner contracts, with explanatory exemplars, that serve as both learning and assessment tools. These instruments are currently undergoing validation in hopes of a) increasing the likelihood that IPE experiences are planned and delivered effectively and b) increasing the justification and accountability of IPE experiences and practical outcomes. Although this validation process will continue for some time, the development of the IPE assessment tools is worthy of particular attention in order to guide further work in this field. French and English copies of the toolkit assessments can be downloaded from http://ennovativesolution.com/WeLearn/IPE-Instruments.html. Although these instruments were designed with interprofessional healthcare teams in mind, we feel they could readily be transferable to a variety of interdisciplinary tasks and settings, such as social work and human services education.