Interpretation of Results
How Does the CHIC Scale Tool Work?
The CHIC Scale has six factors, which indicate personal, environmental, and cultural aspects that influence an individual's ability, or capacity, to practice interprofessional collaboration. The resulting scores from the CHIC Scale are therefore a mixture of three main forces:
- Elements unique to the individual taking the assessment
- Interactions with others
- Intangible qualities organization itself
This combination of forces means that low capacity scores are not a poor reflection of the individual taking the assessment nor does a high score mean that singular praise is merited. However, both low and high scores offer insights that extend beyond the individual, collective, and organizational levels.
Within each of the six factors, there are seven levels to provide meaningful thresholds for comparison. These levels also offer specific steps to intended to help the individual and organization improve their ability to better facilitate, participate, and improve collaboration. Each factor has been individually validated as a stand-alone measure. Additionally, the factors have also been validated collectively as well. This extra feature offers a summary score which is helpful to evaluate each of the factors in the contribution to the overall capacity to collaborate. Levels 1 & 2 indicate a low capacity, Levels 3,4,5 indicate a medium capacity and Levels 6 & 7 indicate a high capacity. The levels are based on responses from the initial validation of the instrument. The scoring thresholds may change over time; however, the levels offer a means to examine the scores of each factor in a context that supports improvement and sustainability efforts.
Importance of a Common Measure
Notice the image of the three glasses of water. Each glass is a different size, and each glass is nearly full. The relative remaining capacity for all three glasses is very small, yet identical. However, the absolute remaining capacity is different for each glass. The CHIC Scale provides a common foundation to meaningfully compare the collaboration capacity of different people and understand how to improve the overall ability of individuals and organizations to participate in interprofessional collaborations.
Low Capacity
A low score in any area is not necessarily cause for concern; however, it is an indication that something specific is holding the individual back from being able to collaborate better. Although several factors with a low capacity score signal significant investment in improvement efforts are immediately necessary.
Medium Capacity
The majority of people taking this assessment will likely have scores in this range. While scores in this range are common, it is important to recognize that this is a transitional region. Low capacity scores can improve toward medium capacity, and high capacity scores can likewise fall into the same range. Using this tool at different times can illustrate how the capacity for collaboration is being affected over time.
High Capacity
The thresholds for the high-capacity range are very tight. Reaching a score in this range may mean more than one thing. A high score may indicate that an individual has developed new personal qualities that merit a higher score or transferred to a different environment where collaboration is better supported. However, a high score may also indicate that one simply hasn't been burdened in a way that would diminish collaboration.
Running on Empty
It takes effort to collaborate well. The CHIC Scale does not measure intelligence, temperament, or suitability for a given discipline or career, only how much effort it takes an individual to collaborate in their current healthcare environment. For example, the first mile in a marathon is easier than the last mile. The relationship between effort and output is not always linear.
As each mile becomes more difficult, every additional mile completed decreases the capacity to run the next one until eventually that capacity is zero. Completing the race before this point is reached is necessary for a satisfying finish. The ability to use the resources available to us is influenced by several factors, any one of which can support or impede progress.
Understanding the Results
Together each of the factors was found to measure the capacity for collaboration, however, they also are distinct enough from one another that the factors can also be reliably used as stand-alone measures. This characteristic of the instrument creates six measures based on the factors.
The summary measure also shares the same scoring structure. Reconciling the resulting factor scores with the summary scores may seem misaligned for some score distributions. The summary score is not the average of the factor scores. Therefore, it is possible to have factor scores with high capacity values and still receive a summary assessment with much lower results.
Each of the seven scoring thresholds was determined from the initial bank of responses that were used to validate the instrument. The collective distributions for each of the measures were unique. This means that the scoring thresholds were configured to the distributions for each measure.
Think of the factor values as holes in the side of a leaky bucket. Some holes might be very high or very low, yet the capacity of the bucket is determined by the lowest hole. Since the factors are interdependent a summary measure based on the average height of the holes would over-estimate the holding capacity of the bucket.
Additionally, the positions of each hole affect the rate it takes for the bucket to reach its lowest capacity. Meaning that the bucket will take more than its holding capacity, if only briefly. Likewise, the summary scores indicate a value of the lowest factor plus a transitional margin collectively determined by the other factors. Maintaining a certain level in the bucket requires varying amounts of additional effort. The values from the CHIC Scale point to the factors where there is the greatest opportunity for improving collaboration.
The good news is that through training and preparation, capacity can be increased, and collaborations improved.