{"title":"Development and Validation of an Instrument to Measure Career Decision-Making Challenges of International Medical Students in China.","authors":"Wen Li, Asaduzzaman Khan, Robyn Gillies, Hong Sun","doi":"10.5334/pme.1384","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"<p><strong>Introduction: </strong>International medical students (IMSs) experience various problems preventing them from making career decisions. Assessing the difficulties involved in the career decision-making process is instrumental for identifying the sources of their career indecision, which may assist them in making more informed career decisions. This study aims to develop and validate an instrument to measure career decision-making challenges of IMSs in China, who are mainly from low- and middle-income countries.</p><p><strong>Methods: </strong>A new scale, INternational meDical studEnt Carrer decISION-making Scale (INDECISION Scale) was developed utilising data from IMSs in China. Initial item generation stemmed from a literature review and qualitative interviews (n = 20), with items adapted or formulated referencing phrasing used in prior instruments. Subsequent expert validation and cognitive interviews (n = 6) informed adjustments, followed by a pilot study (n = 52) and focus group discussions (n = 6). Exploratory factor analysis (EFA) was performed on data from four Chinese universities (n = 334), followed by confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) on data from eight other Chinese universities (n = 514). Convergent validity (n = 102) and test-retest reliability (n = 86) were evaluated using subsets of respondents.</p><p><strong>Results: </strong>The EFA retained 21 items, identifying six factors: unreadiness; lack of self-knowledge; lack of options knowledge; external complexity; lack of decision-making competence; and negative mentality. The CFA confirmed the six-factor model, demonstrating satisfactory model fit indices. Convergent validity and test-retest reliability were supported.</p><p><strong>Conclusions: </strong>The INDECISION Scale exhibits adequate psychometric properties, helping IMSs systematically navigate their decision-making process, allowing for individual challenges to be effectively identified for discussion in counselling. This study serves as a starting point for further research on career indecision and career guidance for IMSs.</p>","PeriodicalId":48532,"journal":{"name":"Perspectives on Medical Education","volume":"13 1","pages":"572-584"},"PeriodicalIF":4.8000,"publicationDate":"2024-11-22","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC11583610/pdf/","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Perspectives on Medical Education","FirstCategoryId":"3","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.5334/pme.1384","RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"医学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"2024/1/1 0:00:00","PubModel":"eCollection","JCR":"Q1","JCRName":"EDUCATION, SCIENTIFIC DISCIPLINES","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
Introduction: International medical students (IMSs) experience various problems preventing them from making career decisions. Assessing the difficulties involved in the career decision-making process is instrumental for identifying the sources of their career indecision, which may assist them in making more informed career decisions. This study aims to develop and validate an instrument to measure career decision-making challenges of IMSs in China, who are mainly from low- and middle-income countries.
Methods: A new scale, INternational meDical studEnt Carrer decISION-making Scale (INDECISION Scale) was developed utilising data from IMSs in China. Initial item generation stemmed from a literature review and qualitative interviews (n = 20), with items adapted or formulated referencing phrasing used in prior instruments. Subsequent expert validation and cognitive interviews (n = 6) informed adjustments, followed by a pilot study (n = 52) and focus group discussions (n = 6). Exploratory factor analysis (EFA) was performed on data from four Chinese universities (n = 334), followed by confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) on data from eight other Chinese universities (n = 514). Convergent validity (n = 102) and test-retest reliability (n = 86) were evaluated using subsets of respondents.
Results: The EFA retained 21 items, identifying six factors: unreadiness; lack of self-knowledge; lack of options knowledge; external complexity; lack of decision-making competence; and negative mentality. The CFA confirmed the six-factor model, demonstrating satisfactory model fit indices. Convergent validity and test-retest reliability were supported.
Conclusions: The INDECISION Scale exhibits adequate psychometric properties, helping IMSs systematically navigate their decision-making process, allowing for individual challenges to be effectively identified for discussion in counselling. This study serves as a starting point for further research on career indecision and career guidance for IMSs.
期刊介绍：
Perspectives on Medical Education mission is support and enrich collaborative scholarship between education researchers and clinical educators, and to advance new knowledge regarding clinical education practices.
Official journal of the The Netherlands Association of Medical Education (NVMO).
Perspectives on Medical Education is a non-profit Open Access journal with no charges for authors to submit or publish an article, and the full text of all articles is freely available immediately upon publication, thanks to the sponsorship of The Netherlands Association for Medical Education.
Perspectives on Medical Education is highly visible thanks to its unrestricted online access policy.
Perspectives on Medical Education positions itself at the dynamic intersection of educational research and clinical education. While other journals in the health professional education domain orient predominantly to education researchers or to clinical educators, Perspectives positions itself at the collaborative interface between these perspectives. This unique positioning reflects the journal’s mission to support and enrich collaborative scholarship between education researchers and clinical educators, and to advance new knowledge regarding clinical education practices. Reflecting this mission, the journal both welcomes original research papers arising from scholarly collaborations among clinicians, teachers and researchers and papers providing resources to develop the community’s ability to conduct such collaborative research. The journal’s audience includes researchers and practitioners: researchers who wish to explore challenging questions of health professions education and clinical teachers who wish to both advance their practice and envision for themselves a collaborative role in scholarly educational innovation. This audience of researchers, clinicians and educators is both international and interdisciplinary.
The journal has a long history. In 1982, the journal was founded by the Dutch Association for Medical Education, as a Dutch language journal (Netherlands Journal of Medical Education). As a Dutch journal it fuelled educational research and innovation in the Netherlands. It is one of the factors for the Dutch success in medical education. In 2012, it widened its scope, transforming into an international English language journal. The journal swiftly became international in all aspects: the readers, authors, reviewers and editorial board members.
The editorial board members represent the different parental disciplines in the field of medical education, e.g. clinicians, social scientists, biomedical scientists, statisticians and linguists. Several of them are leading scholars. Three of the editors are in the top ten of most cited authors in the medical education field. Two editors were awarded the Karolinska Institute Prize for Research. Presently, Erik Driessen leads the journal as Editor in Chief.
Perspectives on Medical Education is highly visible thanks to its unrestricted online access policy. It is sponsored by theThe Netherlands Association of Medical Education and offers free manuscript submission.
Perspectives on Medical Education positions itself at the dynamic intersection of educational research and clinical education. While other journals in the health professional education domain orient predominantly to education researchers or to clinical educators, Perspectives positions itself at the collaborative interface between these perspectives. This unique positioning reflects the journal’s mission to support and enrich collaborative scholarship between education researchers and clinical educators, and to advance new knowledge regarding clinical education practices. Reflecting this mission, the journal both welcomes original research papers arising from scholarly collaborations among clinicians, teachers and researchers and papers providing resources to develop the community’s ability to conduct such collaborative research. The journal’s audience includes researchers and practitioners: researchers who wish to explore challenging questions of health professions education and clinical teachers who wish to both advance their practice and envision for themselves a collaborative role in scholarly educational innovation. This audience of researchers, clinicians and educators is both international and interdisciplinary.
The journal has a long history. In 1982, the journal was founded by the Dutch Association for Medical Education, as a Dutch language journal (Netherlands Journal of Medical Education). As a Dutch journal it fuelled educational research and innovation in the Netherlands. It is one of the factors for the Dutch success in medical education. In 2012, it widened its scope, transforming into an international English language journal. The journal swiftly became international in all aspects: the readers, authors, reviewers and editorial board members.
The editorial board members represent the different parental disciplines in the field of medical education, e.g. clinicians, social scientists, biomedical scientists, statisticians and linguists. Several of them are leading scholars. Three of the editors are in the top ten of most cited authors in the medical education field. Two editors were awarded the Karolinska Institute Prize for Research. Presently, Erik Driessen leads the journal as Editor in Chief.
Perspectives on Medical Education is highly visible thanks to its unrestricted online access policy. It is sponsored by theThe Netherlands Association of Medical Education and offers free manuscript submission.
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