Development and Evaluation of Korean Nurses’ Core Competency Scale (KNCCS)

Nurses compose over a third of the workforce in hospitals, providing clinical and nursing care around the clock often in a collaborative multidisciplinary approach. The competence of nursing students is related to the quality of nursing care they provide, their cooperation with individuals from other disciplines and services, and, ultimately, patient health and safety. Inasmuch the professional standards of nurses rely on their competency, evaluating nurses’ competence is an important and fundamental issue in healthcare.

The research developed and validated a 70-item scale that quantifies core competences of graduating baccalaureate nurses in Korea. Each item was rated on a 5-point Likert scale. The strengths of the KNCCS are its conformity to the standards and criteria for the accreditation of baccalaureate nursing education programs proposed by the Korean Accreditation Board of Nursing; its contemporary and perspective content; and its congruence with the core competencies valued in other countries. This paper provide evidence of content validity of the scale that is based on the evaluation of seven content experts. We validated the scale by measuring its reliability and validity after pilot testing the scale on 528 novice nurses recently employed in nine major hospitals in Korea. Parameters of reliability and validity we used were internal consistency, test-retest reliability, and content validity. However, future studies assessing construct validity and criterion validity of the scale are still required. And the need to continually review and refine the scale must not be overlooked if it is to be an accurate measure of the effectiveness of baccalaureate nursing education programs in a constantly changing environment.

Article by Sanghee Kim,et al,from Yonsei University, South Korea

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