Temporal Stability of the Francis Scale of Attitude toward Christianity Short-Form among 10- to 12-Year-Old English Children: Test-Retest Data over 15 Weeks
Restricted accessResearch articleFirst published online January, 2007
Temporal Stability of the Francis Scale of Attitude toward Christianity Short-Form among 10- to 12-Year-Old English Children: Test-Retest Data over 15 Weeks
Recently three studies have reported on the test-retest reliability of the Francis Scale of Attitude toward Christianity; however, these studies were limited to comparatively small samples (Ns = 39, 114, 58). The present study examined the temporal stability of the 7-item version of the Francis Scale of Attitude toward Christianity over a 15-week period among a sample of 581 English children aged between 10 and 12 years. Data demonstrated that stability across the two administrations was very high (r = .79); however, there was a significant change in mean scores between Time 1 and Time 2.
BaldacchinoD.R., & BuhagiarA. (2003). Psychometric evaluation of the Spiritual Coping Strategies Scale in English, Maltese, back-translation and bilingual versions.Journal of Advanced Nursing, 42, 558–70.
2.
CohenJ. (1988). Statistical power analysis for the behavioral sciences.Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.
3.
CohenJ. (1992). A power primer.Psychological Bulletin, 112, 155–159.
4.
CronbachL.J. (1951). Coefficient alpha and the internal structure of tests.Psychometrika, 16, 297–334.
5.
DaalemanT.P., & FreyB.B. (2004). The Spirituality Index of Well-Being: A new instrument for health-related quality-of-life research.Annals of Family Medicine, 2, 499–503.
6.
EvansT.E., & FrancisL.J. (1996). Measuring attitude toward Christianity through the medium of Welsh. In FrancisL.J., KayW.K., & CampbellW.S. (Eds.), Research in religious education (pp. 279–293). Leominster, UK: Gracewing.
7.
FrancisL.J., & EngerT. (2002). The Norwegian translation of the Francis Scale of Attitude toward Christianity.Scandinavian Journal of Psychology, 43, 363–367.
8.
FrancisL.J., GreerJ.E., & GibsonH.M. (1991). Reliability and validity of a short measure of attitude toward Christianity among secondary school pupils in England, Scotland, and Northern Ireland.Collected Original Resources in Education,15(3), fiche 2, G09.
9.
FrancisL.J., & HermansC.A.M. (2000). Internal consistency reliability and construct validity of the Dutch translation of the Francis Scale of Attitude toward Christianity among adolescents.Psychological Reports, 86, 301–307.
10.
FrancisL.J., & KwiranM. (1999). Werthaltungen (einstellungen) gegen über dem christentum bei deutschen heranwachsenden: Die francis-skala [Assessing attitude toward Christianity among adolescents in Germany: The Francis Scale].Braunschweiger Beiträge, 89, 50–54.
11.
FrancisL.J., LewisC.A., & NgP. (2002). Assessing attitude toward Christianity among adolescents in Hong Kong: The Francis Scale.North American Journal of Psychology, 4, 431–439.
12.
FrancisL.J., LewisJ.M., PhilipchalkR., BrownL.B., & LesterD. (1995). The internal consistency reliability and construct validity of the Francis scale of attitude towards Christianity (adult) among undergraduate students in the UK, USA, Australia and Canada.Personality and Individual Differences, 19, 949–953.
13.
FrancisL.J., & StubbsM.T. (1987). Measuring attitudes towards Christianity: From childhood to adulthood.Personality and Individual Differences, 8, 741–743.
14.
HillP.C., & HoodR.W. (1999). Measures of religiosity.Birmingham, Ala.: Religious Education Press.
15.
HollandJ.C., KashK.M., PassikS., GronertM.K., SisonA., LederbergM., RussakS.M., BaiderL., & FoxB. (1998). A brief spiritual beliefs inventory for use in quality of life research in life-threatening illness.Psychooncology, 7, 460–469.
16.
KayW.K., & FrancisL.J. (1996). Drift from the churches: Attitude toward Christianity during childhood and adolescence.Cardiff, Wales: University of Wales Press.
17.
KingM., JonesL., BarnesK., LowJ., WalkerC., WilkinsonS., MasonC., SutherlandJ., & TookmanA. (2006). Measuring spiritual belief: Development and standardization of a Beliefs and Values Scale.Psychological Medicine, 36, 417–25.
18.
KingM., SpeckP., & ThomasA. (1995). The Royal Free Interview for religious and spiritual beliefs: Development and standardization.Psychological Medicine, 25, 1125–34.
19.
KingM., SpeckP., & ThomasA. (2001). The Royal Free Interview for Spiritual and Religious Beliefs: Development and validation of a self-report version.Psychological Medicine, 31, 1015–23.
20.
KlineP. (2000). The handbook of psychological testing (2nd Edn).London: Routledge.
21.
LewisC.A. (1999). Is the relationship between religiosity and personality ‘contaminated’ by social desirability as assessed by the Lie Scale?: A methodological reply to Michael W. Eysenck (1998).Mental Health, Religion and Culture, 2, 105–114.
22.
LewisC.A. (2000). The religiosity-psychoticism relationship and the two factors of social desirability: A response to Michael W. Eysenck (1999).Mental Health, Religion and Culture, 3, 39–45.
23.
LewisC.A. (2001). Cultural stereotype of the effects of religion on mental health.British Journal of Medical Psychology, 74, 359–367.
24.
LewisC.A., CruiseS.M., & Mc GuckinC. (2005). Temporal stability of the Francis Scale of Attitude toward Christianity short-form: Test-retest data over one week.Psychological Reports, 96, 266–268.
25.
LewisC.A., CruiseS.M., Mc GuckinC., & FrancisL.J. (2006). Temporal stability of the Francis Scale of Attitude toward Christianity among 9- to 11-year-old English children: Test-retest data over six weeks.Social Behavior and Personality, 34, 1081–1086.
26.
LewisC.A., & FrancisL.J. (2002). Reliability and validity of a Welsh translation of a short scale of attitude toward Christianity among 9-15 year olds.Irish Journal of Psychology, 23, 101–108.
27.
LewisC.A., & FrancisL.J. (2003). Evaluer l'attitude d'étudiantes françaises à l'université à l'égard du Christianisme: L'Échelle Francis [Assessing attitude toward Christianity among female university students in France: The Francis Scale].Revue Sciences Pastorales [Pastoral Sciences Journal], 22, 179–190.
28.
LewisC.A., & FrancisL.J. (2004). Reliability and validity of a French translation of a short scale of attitude toward Christianity.Pastoral Psychology, 52, 459–464.
29.
LewisC.A., FrancisL.J., & EngerT. (2003). Reliability and validity of a Norwegian translation of a short scale of attitude toward Christianity.Individual Difference Research, 1, 230–235.
30.
LewisC.A., FrancisL.J., & NgP. (2003). Reliability and validity of a Chinese translation of a short scale of attitude toward Christianity.Journal of Personality and Clinical Studies, 19, 195–200.
31.
LewisC.A., FrancisL.J., ZiebertzH.-G., & KwiranM. (2005). Reliability and validity of a German translation of a short scale of attitude toward Christianity.Individual Differences Research, 3, 205–212.
32.
LewisC.A., & HermansC.A.M. (2003). Reliability and validity of a Dutch translation of a short scale of attitude toward Christianity.Journal of Beliefs and Values, 24, 97–100.
33.
LewisC.A., & MaltbyJ. (1995). Religiosity and personality among US adults.Personality and Individual Differences, 18, 293–295.
34.
LewisC.A., ShevlinM.E., LloydN.S.V., & AdamsonG. (1998). The Francis Scale of Attitude Toward Christianity (short-scale): Exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis among English students.Journal of Social Behavior and Personality, 13, 167–175.
35.
MaltbyJ., & LewisC.A. (1997). The reliability and validity of a short scale of attitude towards Christianity among USA, English, Republic of Ireland, and Northern Ireland adults.Personality and Individual Differences, 22, 649–654.
36.
Mc GuckinC., CruiseS.M., & LewisC.A. (2006). Temporal stability of the Francis Scale of Attitude toward Christianity: Test-retest data over five weeks.Pastoral Psychology, 54, 555–559.
37.
PerniceD., AlesiiA., SpiridigliozziC., CaraccioloB., & GiaquintoS. (2005). Italian validation of the Royal Free Interview for Religious and Spiritual Beliefs.Functional Neurology, 20, 77–84.
38.
ShermanA.C., SimontonS., AdamsD.C., LatifU., PlanteT.G., BurnsS.K., & PolingT. (2001). Measuring religious faith in cancer patients: Reliability and construct validity of the Santa Clara Strength of Religious Faith Questionnaire.Psychooncology, 10, 436–43.
39.
StorchE.A., StrawserM.S., & StorchJ.B. (2004). Two-week test-retest reliability of the Duke Religion Index.Psychological Reports, 94, 993–994.
40.
Vella-BrodrickD.A., & AllenF.C. (1995). Development and psychometric validation of the Mental, Physical, and Spiritual Well-Being Scale.Psychological Reports, 77, 659–74.
41.
WorthingtonE.L.Jr., WadeN.G., HightT.L., RipleyJ.S., McCulloughM.E., BerryJ.W., SchmittM.M., BerryJ.T., BursleyK.H., & O'ConnorL. (2003). The Religious Commitment Inventory-10: Development, refinement, and validation of a brief measure for research and counseling.Journal of Counseling Psychology, 50, 84–96.
