Development of 40-item Paranormal Folklore Knowledge Scale (PKS 40)

Toshiaki IMAIZUMI
KACHI Hospital, Japan

ABSTRACT

For the purpose of assessing knowledge about paranormal folklore, the author developed 40-item paranormal folklore knowledge scale (PKS-40). The test consisted of 40 questions (0-40 point) on paranormal related terms and names which were widely extracted from glossaries of popular occult publications. Content validity was obviously assured because this item selection method. In study A, the correlation between the PKS-40 score and another 96-item questionnaire named self reported paranormal knowlegde scale (PKS-SR) was moderate in 54 nursing students.Standardized difference between both scores was positively correlated to their paranonnal experience (r=0.340,p= 0.012). In study B, 27 nursing students answered the PKS-40 twice with an interval of six months. Their test-retest correlation was significantly high (r=0.786, p=0.000). In study C, 1,230 students of five vocational colleges, two junior colleges, one college and two universities were 18 to 25 years of age completed the PKS-40.Their mean score of the PKS-40 was 20.9 (SD=6.3) and the menas of 15 subgroups were varied. Internal consistency reliability of the PKS-40 was comfirmed by using corrected item remainder correlations, Cronbach's alpha,theta coefficient and factor loadings of principal component analysis.

Key words : paranormal phenomena, folklore, rating scale, reliability, validity