Item to total correlations
A desirable charactenstic of items is that performance on
the Item is predictive of pterformance on the total test
(Nunally 1978) Thus, if individuals give the correct
response to an item, it is expected that their score on the
test will be higher than if they give the incorrect response
to that Item This condition is reñected by a positive item
to total correlation coefficient All item to total item correlations,
1 e the correlation of the response to an mdividual
item with the total score based on the remaimng 19 items,
were positive and above 0 20 Furthermore, all items had
a statistically sigmficant relationship with the total score
Consequently, these findings provide evidence that each
item relates to the total test and the total score on the PCQN
IS reflective of an individual's level of knowledge about
palliative care nursing
Internal consistency
Data from respondents were combined and the Kuder
Richardson formula 20 (KR-20) used to assess the mtemal
consistency of the PCQN The KR-20 formula is
appropnate for dichotomous true/Mse items (l=:nght.0 = wTong/don't know) on knowledge tests (Fitz-Cibbon &
Moms 1987) The mtemal consistency of the 20-item quiz
was O 78, mdicatmg high internal consistency or homogeneity
for the quiz (Nunally 1978)