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Australian Midwifery Standards Assessment Tool

ASSESSING MIDWIFERY PRACTICE

 

The Australian Midwifery Standards Assessment Tool (AMSAT) 2019 has been developed to assess midwifery practice in authentic situations and workplace settings against the Australian Midwife Standards for Practice 2018.  The AMSAT has been determined to be a valid, reliable and acceptable assessment tool that enables consistent assessment of midwifery student workplace performance.

It is a free, user friendly tool that assesses the performance of midwifery students or graduates.

A standardised midwifery assessment tool has advantages because of its uniform reporting. These include:

  • comparison of outcomes when student education and placements vary
  • benchmarking across practice sites and/or universities
  • reporting that aligns with the Midwife Standards for Practice and the Threshold Learning Outcomes for Health

ASSESSMENT

AMSAT

Assessment is the process of making a judgement about a student’s performance against established criteria such as learning objectives or professional standards. The assessment of student performance takes place during midwifery placements and involves the learner, the assessor and the university. AMSAT 2019 has been developed against the Australian Midwife Standards for Practice 2018.

There are three tools that make up AMSAT

  • Scoring sheet
  • AMSAT feedback sheet
  • Behavioural cue examples
  • These assessment tools are free to use.
The front page of AMSAT – the scoring sheet – is the validated component and should not be altered. The back page of AMSAT, which has feedback boxes and additional information, can be modified to suit local needs. A number of variations are provided. If you modify the back page and wish to share your version, please send to Prof Linda Sweet. An electronic medium for inputting the data has been developed, please contact L Sweet for further information.

The performance scoring sheet records the assessors’ rating of 25 items across the 7 domains. AMSAT items are assessed based on performance of observable behaviours.

The feedback sheet records assessor feedback for student learning. This is based on Pendleton’s rules for effective feedback. Variations including student self-assessment are also included. This can be modified to suit local need.

The behavioural cues are a non-exhaustive set of examples of behaviours organised by domains. The behavioural cues are provided to accompany the midwifery performance scoring sheet to illustrate desired behaviours.

 

Download the free assessment tools here.

TEACHING AND LEARNING RESOURCES

Teaching and Learning

The AMSAT has been developed to assess midwifery practice in authentic situations and workplace settings. It is a user-friendly tool that can be used to assess the performance of midwifery students or graduates. The scores for the items in the tool are determined by observed behaviours and should be based on student performance against the expectations for the students’ level of training, and that scoring the ‘not applicable’ section can only be used if the student has not had an opportunity to demonstrate the behaviour. It has been developed to assist consistency for midwives who are required to assess student and/or graduate performance in the practice setting.

The following resources include a training manual to assist supervisors/facilitators/assessors to use the tool, a range of short videos that explain the variance in expected student performance by year groups, and a reference list for recommended further resources.

 

 

AMSAT Resource Manual

An Introduction to AMSAT

Video Resources

Scenario 1

Scenario 2

Scenario 3

Recommended Reading

  • Sweet L, Fleet J, Bull A, et al. (2020) Development and Validation of the Australian Midwifery Standards Assessment Tool (AMSAT) to the Australian Midwife Standards for Practice 2018. Women and Birth. 33(2), 135-144. doi:10.1016/j.wombi.2019.08.004 : Read more 
  • Sweet L., Bazargan M., McKellar L., Gray J. & Henderson A. (2018) Validation of the Australian Midwifery Standards Assessment Tool (AMSAT): a tool to assess midwifery competence, Women and Birth. 31(1), 59-68. doi:10.1016/j.wombi.2017.06.017 Read more
  • Ossenberg C, Henderson A, Dalton M. Determining attainment of nursing standards: the use of behavioural cues to enhance clarity and transparency in student clinical assessment, Nurse Education Today. 35(1):12-15. doi:10.1016/j.nedt.2014.09.002 Read more 
  • Norcini J, Anderson B, Bollela V, Burch V, Costa MJ, Duvivier R, et al. Criteria for good assessment: consensus statement and recommendations from the Ottawa 2010 Conference. Med Teach 2011;33(3):206–14. doi:10.3109/0142159X.2011.551559 Read more 
  • Norcini J, Burch V. Workplace-based assessment as an educational tool: AMEE guide no. 31. Med Teach 2007;29(9–10):855–71. doi:10.1080/01421590701775453Read more
  • van der Vleuten CPM, Schuwirth LWT, Scheele F, Driessen EW, Hodges B. The assessment of professional competence: building blocks for theory development. Best Pract Res Clin Obstet Gynaecol 2010;24(6):703–19.:Read more 
  • Embo M, Driessen E, Valcke M, van der Vleuten CPM. Integrating learning assessment and supervision in a competency framework for clinical workplace education. Nurse Educ Today 2015;35(2):341–6. doi:10.1016/j.nedt.2014.11.022 Read more
  • Nursing and Midwifery Board of Australia. Midwife standards for practice. 2018; Available from: https://www.nursingmidwiferyboard.gov.au/Codes-Guidelines-Statements/Professional-standards.aspx.Read more

Validity

Australian Midwifery Standards Assessment Tool (AMSAT) has been determined to be a valid, reliable and acceptable assessment tool that enables consistent assessment of midwifery student workplace performance1. It is based on the Midwife Standards for Practice (2018) approved by the Nursing and Midwifery Board of Australia.


Analysis of 255 AMSAT forms indicate the AMSAT as

  • Reliability: Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin measure of sampling adequacy value was .879 and Bartlett’s test of sphericity was significant (p< 0.000), both indicating that the data was suitable for factor analysis. One factor had an eigenvalue of 16.6 and explained about 67% of variance. Cronbach’s alpha was.986. These indicate excellent internal consistency and construct reliability.
  • Validity: The Kruskal-Wallis One-Way ANOVA showed there was a statistically significant difference in the calculated mean scores of AMSAT performance for formative assessment (Mean Rank = 69.39) and summative assessment (Mean Rank = 96.44), H = 13.341, df = 1, N = 163, Cohen’s f = .30 (medium effect size).
An electronic medium for inputting the data has been developed, please contact L Sweet for further information.
Contact
Linda Sweet

Email: [email protected]