Development of an interview skills assessment checklist for nursing students: Validity and reliability study

INTRODUCTION: In nursing education, although students receive training in communication and interview techniques, the objective assessment of these skills remains a challenge. This study aimed to develop a valid and reliable checklist to evaluate nursing students’ interview skills, guided by Peplau’s Interpersonal Relations Theory.
METHODS: The study employed a methodological design and was conducted with 95 intern nursing students. The Interview Skills Assessment Checklist (ISAC) was developed by the researchers based on theoretical and expert input. Content validity was assessed using expert evaluation and Kendall’s W coefficient (W=0.595, p<0.001). Discriminative validity was examined using the independent samples t-test between upper and lower 27% groups. Internal consistency was measured using Cronbach’s alpha, and construct validity was tested via exploratory factor analysis.
RESULTS: The checklist consists of 14 items structured into three sub-dimensions: management of the interview, setting up the interview framework, and interview-related skills. Cronbach’s alpha was 0.821, and the three-factor structure explained 53.17% of the total variance. Each item is scored on a 3-point Likert scale (1=insufficient, 3=sufficient), with higher scores indicating better performance. No test-retest analysis was conducted, as the students’ skills were expected to develop over time.
DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSION: The developed checklist is a valid and reliable tool for evaluating nursing students’ interview performance. It can be used both to monitor students' progress throughout their training (formative assessment) and to evaluate their competency at the end of the educational process (summative assessment). Additionally, it can be adapted for use in the education of other health professions where similar skills are assessed.