The Tabletop Matrix: Determining Reliability for a Criterion-Referenced Performance Measure.

Background: Disasters are high-impact events. Tabletop exercises are a historic education strategy used to determine policies, procedures, and strengths and challenges for those involved. A tabletop exercise was designed for students to demonstrate transfer of prior medical-surgical content to a novel context of a hospital patient surge following a disaster. To accompany the tabletop exercise, a tabletop matrix was developed as an instrument to measure students' learning transfer of medical-surgical content.

Methods: A pilot study was conducted with senior baccalaureate nursing students to determine instrument reliability and effectiveness of the tabletop exercise.

Results: Postpilot interrater reliability was established with medical-surgical experts for the matrix, scenarios, and dispositions. Cronbach's alpha could not be calculated, and rationale is provided. Improvements were made to the instrument's items.

Conclusions: The tabletop matrix was determined to be a criterion-referenced performance measurement of nursing students' learning transfer of medical-surgical concepts to a novel circumstance using a disaster-scenario tabletop exercise. [J Nurs Educ. 2017;56(8):509-513.].