Development and psychometric testing of hybrid education competence instrument for social and health care, and health sciences educators

Background: The competencies of educators in social and health care, and health sciences fields have been studied; however, studies related specifically to hybrid (synchronous face-to-face and online) teaching competence are scarce.Aim: To develop and psychometrically test the hybrid education competence instrument for the purpose of self assessment of hybrid education competence. Design: A cross-sectional study was conducted to develop and psychometrically test the instrument.Methods: The instrument was developed in four phases: (I) establishing the conceptual framework, (II) testing the face and content validity, (III) testing the construct validity, and (IV) testing the internal consistency of the instrument. The conceptual framework was based on studies related to digital pedagogy and hybrid teaching. The face and content validity were tested using an expert panel (n = 12). Pre-testing (n = 10) was performed prior to the cross-sectional data collection (N = 1689, n = 206) which was performed during the autumn of 2022. The data was collected from educators in social and health care, and health sciences fields at six universities and twelve universities of applied sciences in Finland. Construct validity was tested using exploratory factor analysis and internal consistency was tested using Cronbach's alpha.Results: The newly developed and psychometrically tested instrument contains 46 items across 5 factors: (1) Competence in planning and resourcing hybrid teaching; (2) technological competence in hybrid teaching; (3) interaction competence in hybrid teaching; (4) digital pedagogy competence in hybrid teaching; and (5) ethical competence in hybrid teaching. These five factors explain 70.83 % of the total variance. Cronbach's alpha values ranged from 0.901 to 0.951.Conclusion: The instrument developed in this study can be used to measure the hybrid education competence of educators in social and health care, and health sciences fields. The instrument can also be utilised in an interdisciplinary manner to assess hybrid teaching competence in other educational fields, but also it can be used in the design of continuous learning and training for educators.