Development of cognitive knowledge test scale on small animal farming practices

The knowledge test was developed to measure the knowledge of small animal farmers. In all 114 items were initially constructed on the basis of promoting thinking rather than root memorization and differentiate the well informed small animal owners from the poorly informed ones. The scores from sample respondents were subjected to item analysis, comprising of item difficulty index & item discrimination index. In the final selection, the scale consisted of 42 items with difficulty index ranging from 30-80 and discrimination index ranging from 0.30 to 0.55. The reliability of the knowledge test developed was tested by split half and test-retest method. The coefficient of correlation values in split half & test retest methods were 0.85& 0.76 respectively which were found to be significant at 1% level. It was found that knowledge test constructed was highly stable & dependable for measurement.