Table 1
Five-point scale for rating importance of tasks and knowledge statements and frequency of tasks performed
Importance
0 1⁄4 Of no importance
1 1⁄4 Of little importance
2 1⁄4 Of moderate importance 3 1⁄4 Important
4 1⁄4 Very important
Frequency
0 1⁄4 Never
1 1⁄4 Seldom
2 1⁄4 Occasionally 3 1⁄4 Often
4 1⁄4 Very often
statements vastly differed from those used for the 2010 CBIC PA,13 with only 15 items unchanged. The task and knowledge state- ments were grouped together into broad categories. Each of these categories was then reviewed to determine if it was distinct and critical to the practice of infection prevention to require a stand- alone classification. This resulted in the creation of 8 categories called domains. Although questions covering all 120 task and knowledge statements cannot be included in every examination, the specified number of questions from each domain creates the test specification or content outline. The survey development team developed an appropriate 5-point Likert scale for measurement of importance for tasks and knowledge statements and frequency of the tasks (Table 1).
Sixteen demographic and background questions were devel- oped for the updated survey. These questions provided an oppor- tunity to better understand the overall picture of the survey respondents and also allowed for subgroup analysis to determine if there were variations in response based on demographic features, background, and experience.
The survey was drafted and revised and piloted by a group of volunteers who provided comments on content and clarity. Feed- back from the pilot group was incorporated into the final survey tool, which contained a total of 8 domains, including 80 tasks and 40 knowledge statements. In addition to completing background and demographic questions, respondents were asked to rate the importance and frequency of performance for each of the 80 tasks, the importance of each of the 40 knowledge statements, and how well the tasks and knowledge statements represented each of the domains (content coverage ratings), the latter using a 5-point scale that ranged from very poorly to very well. Respondents were able to include free text to indicate any areas that they felt were not covered within each of the domains. Respondents were also asked to indicate what proportion of the examination should be devoted to each domain by distributing 100 percentage points across the 8 domains. Finally, respondents were asked open-ended questions including the following: How do you expect your work role to change over the next few years? and What knowledge will be needed to meet changing job demands?