Development and Validation of the Performance-Based Situation Awareness Observation Schedule (PBSAOS): The Process and Lessons Learned

BACKGROUND: No instruments are currently available to assess nursing students' maintenance of situation awareness. The aim of this study was to develop and validate the Performance-Based Situation Awareness Observation Schedule for measuring nursing students' use of situation awareness. METHOD: Twelve expert clinicians participated in a qualitative, reiterative consensus-driven process to establish the content validity of the tool. The tool was then piloted during the delivery of a situation awareness education program for final-year nursing students. Cohen's kappa was used to assess the interrater reliability. RESULTS: The resultant tool comprised 54 items, which captured strategies to maintain situation awareness and task errors that would infer the presence of situation awareness. The values obtained for Cohen's kappa indicated that the level of agreement was at least substantial for approximately 80% of the items. CONCLUSION: This study developed a valid and reliable tool to measure nursing students' use of situation awareness. [J Nurs Educ. 2019;58(8):468-473.].