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3.5.3.1Phase 1, Delphi panel. Phase 1 incorporated a survey of the Delphi panellists seeking to collect qualitative data through open comment text boxes. A total of 35 nurses who met the inclusion criteria were invited by email from the researcher to participate as expert nurses in the Delphi panel. All invited participants were provided a participant information sheet (Appendix 9), consent form (Appendix 10) and link to the SurveyMonkey survey (Appendix 14). Documents pertaining to the standards and codes of the nursing profession in Australia and graduate attributes of the study site were provided to all invited participants (ICN, 2012; NMBA, 2016, 2018a; Quality

Management Office, 2017). The final number of participants at the commencement of Round 1 was 16 nurses, which met the criteria.

In Round 1, the Delphi panellists were requested to provide their opinions and views on the knowledge, skills and attitudes required of the undergraduate nurse in the SurveyMonkey questionnaire (Figure 12). The Delphi panellists were asked to provide answers to seven initial questions in SurveyMonkey, within a two-week timeframe. Each question requested opinions on the knowledge, skills and attitudes expected of the research site’s professional nursing students, and then asked about the graduate

attributes in relation to each of these three areas. The seventh question was an open text comment box seeking any additional comments that had not already been addressed in the six previous questions.

1. Knowledge: The information a student nurse acquires through education and experience.

Please reflect and provide your comments on the expected knowledge of an undergraduate nursing student that supports them in their development as a professional.

Comment box:

Figure 12. Round 1 Delphi question example.

The Delphi panel responses were gathered, categorised and thematically

analysed and grouped into three headings for competency assessment: knowledge, skills and attitudes.

Round 2 commenced with an email disseminated to the Delphi panel with a summary of findings from the thematic analysis in Round 1. These suggested criteria were presented in a Microsoft Word document, with a SurveyMonkey link, requesting a rating of the preferred 10 statements for each heading. The Delphi panel responses from Round 2 were again analysed and grouped under the headings of knowledge, skills and

attitudes, and a summary was developed to send to the Delphi panel for Round 3 data collection. Round 3 involved an email with an attached Microsoft Word document that summarised the Round 2 findings and asked for feedback about competency wording, opinions on the repetitive themes emerging, and views on combining statements that appeared to overlap during analysis. This email is available for review in Appendix 15.

Following the three rounds of data collection and analysis, the original 125 statements developed following Round 1 were refined down to 103 statements by the 15 Delphi panellists in Round 2, and further reduced to 31 statements in Round 3. Round 4 involved revisiting excluded criteria, and the Delphi panellists were asked to undertake a final review and ranking of the 31 preferred statements, and to review the 18 excluded statements and rank these if they believed the statements warranted inclusion in the competency.

Data were collected by SurveyMonkey during each round, with participants remaining anonymous and separate from other expert panellists. The researcher was cognisant of the fact that the Delphi panel reaching consensus—at a consensus rate of 51%—is deemed acceptable in Delphi method research (Keeney et al., 2011), yet does not necessarily indicate that a correct answer has been found, but rather that the experts have reached agreement on the issue presented to them (Foth et al., 2016; Keeney et al., 2011). The researcher acknowledges that, despite the accepted consensus rate for the study being 51%, the Delphi responses in further rounds were above 73% consensus on all statements presented for review.

3.5.3.2Phase 2, table of specifications. Phase 2 data collection consisted of an email invitation to all CFs at the study site (n = 150) who had a minimum of six months of experience in facilitating undergraduate nurses. CFs with fewer than six months of experience were not emailed to participate. CFs were invited via email to review the

proposed professional practice competency, and provided a participant information sheet as an attachment to the email, along with a link to the SurveyMonkey survey. The SurveyMonkey survey provided an introduction to the content and instructions for CFs about the rating scale and process of assessing each of the 33 criteria for their ability to measure undergraduate nursing professional practice. This phase of the study used a ToS methodology (Notar et al., 2004), providing content validity of the professional practice competency by the 58 CF participants. This sample size was verified by the university biostatistician as a statistically significant sample size in health research. The university biostatistician advised that the researcher should aim for a minimum 35% return rate of participation, and the final response from the CF group was 38.6%.

The ToS methodology is described in the literature as a blueprint for competency development or a matrix for behaviours and content, and was used to support this process (Jarjoura & Brennan, 1982; Newman et al., 2013; Notar et al., 2004). The CFs were asked to complete a quantitative SurveyMonkey survey

(Appendix 8) on the assessment criteria of the professional practice competency, and rate the ability of the proposed criteria to measure undergraduate nursing professional practice using a five-point Likert scale rating.

3.5.4Data analysis methods. The previous section discussed the methods,