Sammanfattning
Background: The Assessment of Communication and Interaction Skills
(ACIS) has been shown to possess good psychometric properties, but
the recently translated Norwegian version of the instrument (N-ACIS)
has not yet been subjected to such investigation. Moreover, the amount
of training needed in order to ensure that raters’ ACIS scores are
reliable has not yet been explored.
Methods: Twenty-six occupational therapy students (response rate
60.5 percent) participated in this study, which was performed in
conjunction with a student training seminar. Each student performed
two assessments with the N-ACIS, based on observations of students
who had been given specific instructions for roleplaying during the
performed activities. Pairs of students were assessed for interrater
agreement on the N-ACIS total scale and subdomain scales with the
intraclass correlation coefficient (ICC).
Results: The ICC measures were 0.92 (total scale score), 0.99 (physicality),
0.76 (information exchange), and 0.80 (relations).
Conclusion: A very brief introduction to the N-ACIS appears to be
sufficient to achieve high interrater reliability on the aggregated scales
- at least under artificial conditions. Remaining questions concern the
level of interrater agreement at the item level, how item scores would
correspond with an expert opinion, and interrater agreement in real
life practice situations.