Psychometric properties of a modified cultural awareness scale for use in higher education within the health and social care fields

BMC Medical Education

Elisabeth Carlson¹  Christine Kumlien²  Melanie Bish³  Doris Leung⁴  P. S. Chan⁴  Engle A. Chan⁴  Lynn Rew⁵ 

[1] Department of Care Science, Malmö University, Jan Waldenströms gata 25, 20506, Malmö, Sweden;Department of Care Science, Malmö University, Jan Waldenströms gata 25, 20506, Malmö, Sweden;Department of Cardiothoracic and Vascular Surgery, Skåne University Hospital, Malmö, Sweden;Department of Rural Nursing & Midwifery, La Trobe Rural Health School, Melbourne, Australia;School of Nursing, Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hong Kong, Hong Kong;School of Nursing, University of Texas at Austin, Austin, USA;

关键词: Cultural awareness;    Cultural competence;    Cultural awareness scale;    Factor analysis;   

DOI  :  10.1186/s12909-020-02326-8

来源: Springer

【 摘 要 】

BackgroundCultural awareness and cultural competence have become important skills in higher education as populations continue to grow in diversity around the world. However, currently, there are few instruments designed to assess student awareness of the aspects of culture, and the existing instruments need further development and testing for use with different target populations. Therefore, the aim of this study was to test the psychometric properties of a modified version of the Cultural Awareness Scale (CAS) for use in higher education within the health and social care fields.MethodsA modified version of the CAS was developed, which was tested psychometrically using cross-sectional data. In total, 191 undergraduate students from different health and social care undergraduate programs in Sweden and Hong Kong responded to a call to test the modified instrument.ResultsThe results showed that the modified CAS is a four-factor measure of cultural awareness and possesses satisfactory internal consistency. Results also support the use of the modified CAS as a generic tool to measure cultural awareness among students in higher education within the health and social care fields.ConclusionThe modified CAS showed satisfactory psychometric properties and can be recommended as a generic tool to measure cultural awareness among students in higher education within the health and social care fields. However, further psychometric testing on the effectiveness of the modified CAS as a tool to evaluate the efficacy of cultural awareness interventions is required.

【 授权许可】

CC BY