Publication Date

5-2010

Advisor(s) - Committee Chair

Dr. Elizabeth Schoenfelt (Director), Dr. Reagan Brown, Dr. Dawn Wright

Degree Program

Department of Psychology

Degree Type

Maste of Arts, Industrial/Organizational Psychology

Abstract

The profession of nursing is experiencing a shortage of qualified nursing professionals. Hospitals understaffed with nurses are likely to experience several negative consequences including low quality care, which places the health and safety of patients at risk. In order to ensure an effective selection process for hospital nurses, a structured situational interview, developed using a content validation approach, was validated using a criterion-related approach.

Interviews that have a high degree of structure consistently demonstrate higher predictive validities with job performance than do interviews with less structure. The structured situational interview in this study had a high degree of structure and was developed after a job analysis was completed. Interviewee responses were evaluated using a behavioral summation scale.

The results of the current study confirmed the hypothesis that there would be a positive relationship between nursing student interview scores and Grade Point Average, thus indicating that the structured interview should be useful in the selection of professionals in the field of nursing. However, the observed validity coefficient (r = .29) was lower than expected based on a review of previous research on the criterion-related validity of structured situational interviews. It is recommended that future research with this instrument use a larger sample of nurse incumbents as participants and nurse managers as interviewers. Additional interview items, developed following a content validity approach, would likely increase the reliability and the validity of the interview

Disciplines

Industrial and Organizational Psychology

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