Reliability and Validity Evidence for an Academic Gender Equity Questionnaire

Abstract

Objective: The majority of practicing pharmacists and student pharmacists are women. However, instruments to assess perceptions of gender equity within pharmacy academia are not available. The objective of this manuscript is to describe the psychometric analysis of a questionnaire developed to assess gender equity by a Gender Equity Task Force and to report reliability and validity evidence.

Methods: A questionnaire was created, including 21 five-point scale questions addressing: teaching; research; service; advancement; mentoring; recruitment; and gender of college leaders. The survey was distributed via email in December 2020 to all social and administrative science section members of two professional associations. Rasch analysis was performed to evaluate the reliability and validity evidence for the questionnaire.

Results: After reverse coding, all items met parameters for unidimensionality necessary for Rasch analysis. Once adjacent categories were merged to create a 3-point scale, the scale and items met parameters for appropriate functionality. Items were ordered hierarchically in order of difficulty. The modified instrument and scale can be treated as interval level data for future use.

Conclusion: This analysis shows that there is reliability and validity evidence for the gender equity questionnaire for use in the social and administrative academic pharmacy population if recommended edits such as the 3-point scale are used. Future research on gender equity can benefit from use of a psychometrically sound questionnaire for data collection.