Abstract

ADALBERTO CAMPO, Arias; HERAZO, Edwin  and  OVIEDO, Heidi Celina. Internal Structure and Reliability of a Five-Item Form of the Francis Scale in Medical Students. Pensam. psicol. [online]. 2017, vol.15, n.2, pp.7-14. ISSN 1657-8961.  https://doi.org/10.11144/Javerianacali.PPSI15-2.Eice.

Objective. To understand the internal consistency reliability of a five-item form of the Francis scale toward Christianity (Francis-5) in medical students from a university in Bucaramanga, Colombia. Method. A validation study was conducted in which 365 students participated, aged between 18 and 30 years-old (M = 20.12, SD = 1.93). An exploratory factor analysis was performed for construct validity. Nomological validity was tested by comparing scores by gender and religious affiliation. Internal consistency was assessed with Cronbach alpha. Results. One dimension accounted for 88.4% of the total variance; higher scores were observed in women than in men (M = 16.70, SD = 5.03 vs. M = 15.35, SD = 5.51, t = 2.41; p = 0.016), and in non-Catholic Christian affiliations (M = 18.26; SD = 4.26) than other (M = 16.68, SD = 4.28 among Catholics versus M = 12.86; SD = 7.53 among other filiations and M = 8.00, SD = 7.38 among none filiation, F = 32.849, p<0.001), and alpha was 0.97. Conclusion. Francis-5 is a reliable instrument for measuring religiosity in medical students from a university in Bucaramanga, Colombia. Further research should determine other measures of validity and reliability for the scale.

Keywords : Christianity; test validity; reproducibility of results; medical students; validation studies.

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