Development of a Paper Version of the Tuberculosis Implicit Association Test (IAT) and Verifying its Reliability and Validity

Abstract

Objectives: This study aimed to develop a paper version of the Tuberculosis Implicit Association Test (IAT) and verify its reliability and validity.

Methods: To evaluate explicit awareness of infections, 96 nursing and 27 psychology students were asked to complete a survey that included a paper version of the Tuberculosis IAT and other existing psychometric scales. Test–retest reliability and discriminant, known-groups, and concurrent validities of the Tuberculosis IAT were then assessed.

Results: 41 nursing students and 20 psychology students completed the questionnaire (valid response rate: 42.7% and 74.1%, respectively). The test–retest reliability was confirmed by the intraclass correlation coefficient of 0.679. Regarding discriminant validity, as hypothesized, the IAT scores did not correlate with the social desirability scale score (r = 0.023, p = 0.861). Contrary to our hypothesis concerning known-groups validity, there was no significant difference in IAT scores between nursing and psychology students (t = 0.929, p = 0.357) or among nursing students seeking credit for the course on infectious disease nursing (t = –0.220, p = 0.827). In contrast, as hypothesized, there was no significant correlation between nursing students’ knowledge of tuberculosis and the IAT scores (r = 0.032, p = 0.845). Additionally, regarding concurrent validity, no significant correlation was found between the perceived vulnerability to disease scale and IAT scores (r = 0.190, p = 0.142), contrary to the hypothesis.

Conclusions: Although the paper version of the Tuberculosis IAT was considered to have a sufficient reliability and validity, further investigation into its known-groups validity was deemed necessary.