Texas inventory of health education competencies in Texas colleges and universities

Abstract

The problem addressed in this study involved the development of a standardized instrument for evaluating the knowledge of the entry level health educator over the competencies addressed in A Framework for the Development of Competency-Based Curricula for Entry Level Health Educators (Blue Book). Subproblems of the study included validating the instrument in Texas colleges and universities and comparing the performance of Texas students with the performance of students from a normative sample. The hypothesis of the study was that there would be no difference between the performance of Texas students on the examination and the normative sample. An initial pool of 313 multiple choice items, based on the objectives of the Blue Book, was developed by 60 health educators from throughout Texas. Following content validity, 186 of the items were deemed suitable for inclusion in two 90-item instruments, the Texas Inventory of Health Education Competencies (TIHEC), Forms A and B. Forms A and B were administered to a normative group of graduating health education students from 14 colleges and universities in the United States. Analysis of the data resulted in instrument reduction to two 50-item examinations. Analysis of the 50-item examinations using the same student sample as the 90-item instruments resulted in 2 valid and reliable 50-item instruments. Eight schools in Texas administered Forms A and B to graduating health education majors. Analysis of results indicated test statistic output comparable to that of the normative sample with the exception of reliability coefficients. Reliability coefficients for the normative sample were somewhat higher than for the Texas students. An ANOVA procedure to compare the means of Texas students with the means of the normative sample resulted in a statistically higher mean score for the normative sample than for Texas students on Form A of the TIHEC. Results of the ANOVA for Form B indicated no significant difference between the mean score of the Texas students and the normative sample. Findings of this study indicate that Forms A and B of the TIHEC are valid and reliable instruments which measure the knowledge of the entry level health educator over Blue Book competencies.