Evaluation of an Internship Assessment Grid for Francophone Physical and Health Education Student Interns

The objective of the present study is to analyze four metric qualities of an assessment grid for internship placements used by professionals to evaluate a sample of 110 Franco-Ontarian student interns registered between 2006 and 2009 at Laurentian University in the School of Human Kinetics. The evaluation grid was composed of 26 criteria. The four metric qualities that were analyzed were: the degree of difficulty, the degree of discrimination, the internal consistency, and the concurrent validity. Each intern’s performance was assessed by three individuals: the professional supervisor, the intern (self-assessment) and the university professor who coordinates the internship placement. The analysis of the three assessments based on the Education Testing Service Method indicates that the assessment of the professional supervisors and intern self-assessment are too high (difficulty index, pi = 20) and produced a discrimination power of zero between the interns (discrimination index, Di = 0). The analysis of the internal consistency of the criteria indicates that a number are too highly interrelated (Cronbach’s alpha = 0.97) and that ten criteria can be removed from the evaluation grid, as they are redundant. Concurrent validity, determined by calculating three correlations between the three dimensions of the evaluation grid (before, during, and after the teaching session) and the overall rating of the intern, was demonstrated insofar as the lowest correlation between the assessment of the intern’s performance and the measurement criterion (overall rating of the intern’s performance) was significant (r (106) = . 76, p < . 001). L'objectif de la presente etude est d'analyser quatre qualites metriques de l'evaluation d’un echantillon de 110 etudiants stagiaires franco-ontariens inscrits entre 2006 et 2009 a l'Universite Laurentienne a l'Ecole des sciences de l'activite physique. La grille d'evaluation etait composee de 26 criteres. Les quatre qualites metriques sont: le degre de difficulte, le degre de discrimination, la consistance interne et la validite concomitante des criteres. Les stages ont ete evalues par trois personnes: le superviseur de stage, le stagiaire (auto-evaluation) et le professeur d'universite qui coordonne le stage. L'analyse des items selon la methode ETS (Educational testing service) indique que les evaluations des superviseurs de stage et l’auto-evaluation des stagiaires sont trop elevees (indice de difficulte, pi = 20) et ne sont pas discriminantes (indice de discrimination Di = 0). L'analyse de la consistance interne des criteres indique qu'un certain nombre sont trop fortement correlees entre eux (coefficient alpha de Cronbach = 0,97) et que dix criteres peuvent etre retires de la grille d'evaluation car ils sont redondants. La validite concomitante, determinee par le calcul de trois correlations entre les trois dimensions de la grille d'evaluation (avant, pendant, et apres la session d'enseignement) et la note globale du stagiaire, a ete demontree dans la mesure ou la plus faible correlation entre l'evaluation de la performance du stagiaire et le critere de mesure (note globale de la performance du stagiaire) etait significative (r (106) = . 76, p < . 001).