ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Educ.
Sec. Higher Education
This article is part of the Research TopicInnovative Technologies and Pedagogical Strategies Reshaping Medical Physiology EducationView all 4 articles
Instrument Development and Preliminary Validation of a Scale Assessing Pre-Nursing Students' Perceived Instructor Care in Anatomy and Physiology
Provisionally accepted
- Florida Gulf Coast University, Fort Myers, United States
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Background: While numerous studies have shown a correlation between student-instructor rapport and student academic performance, few studies have investigated the relationship between students' perception of instructor care and academic performance, particularly in gateway STEM courses. Anatomy and Physiology, a gateway course to nursing programs, is generally associated with high rates of unsuccessful outcomes. Method: A psychometric instrument was developed to identify the attributes that pre-nursing students perceive as indicators of instructor care. The instrument also measures the extent to which students attribute instructors' care to their academic performance in Anatomy and Physiology. A preliminary validation of the instrument was completed to assess its reliability and validity. Results: This paper describes a pilot study to assess the reliability and preliminary validation of the instrument. Conclusion: This tool contributes to existing scholarly work on student–instructor relationships and supports institutional decisions aimed at improving student academic performance. However, full empirical and structural validation of the instrument is reserved for future large-sample studies to further establish its factor structure, stability, and generalizability.
Keywords: climate of care, Instructor caring, instrument design, nursing students, Pilot Study, student academic performance, student success
Received: 02 Oct 2025; Accepted: 08 Dec 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Khalaf, Zhang, Craddock, Weiss and Sillevis. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Nicola Khalaf
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