Reliability of the Interprofessional Collaborator Assessment Rubric (ICAR) in Multi Source Feedback (MSF) with post-graduate medical residents

BACKGROUND Increased attention on collaboration and teamwork competency development in medical education has raised the need for valid and reliable approaches to the assessment of collaboration competencies in post-graduate medical education. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the reliability of a modified Interprofessional Collaborator Assessment Rubric (ICAR) in a multi-source feedback (MSF) process for assessing post-graduate medical residents' collaborator competencies. METHODS Post-graduate medical residents (n = 16) received ICAR assessments from three different rater groups (physicians, nurses and allied health professionals) over a four-week rotation. Internal consistency, inter-rater reliability, inter-group differences and relationship between rater characteristics and ICAR scores were analyzed using Cronbach's alpha, one-way and two-way repeated measures ANOVA, and logistic regression. RESULTS Missing data decreased from 13.1% using daily assessments to 8.8% utilizing an MSF process, p = .032. High internal consistency measures were demonstrated for overall ICAR scores (α = .981) and individual assessment domains within the ICAR (α = .881 to .963). There were no significant differences between scores of physician, nurse, and allied health raters on collaborator competencies (F2,5 = 1.225, p = .297, η2 = .016). Rater gender was the only significant factor influencing scores with female raters scoring residents significantly lower than male raters (6.12 v. 6.82; F1,5 = 7.184, p = .008, η 2 = .045). CONCLUSION The study findings suggest that the use of the modified ICAR in a MSF assessment process could be a feasible and reliable assessment approach to providing formative feedback to post-graduate medical residents on collaborator competencies.