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.