A scale to measure knowledge level of dairy farmers affected by Kerala flood 2018 on disaster response

Kerala was worst affected by flood disaster in August 2018.The most effective strategy to mitigate the adverse effects of flood disaster is providing the general public with basic knowledge of how to respond to disasters. The present study was contemplated to develop and standardise a scale for measuring dairy farmers’ knowledge on disaster response. Based on thinking and differentiation of well knowledgeable dairy farmers from poorly knowledgeable dairy farmers 27 items comprehensively covering each aspect of disaster response was constructed. Based on relevancy test, 16 items were selected. These selected knowledge items were subjected to item analysis comprising of difficulty index, discrimination index and point biserial co- relation. A total of 9 items were selected for the final scale. The reliability of the knowledge test was measured by Cronbach alpha. Cronbach’s alpha was found to be excellent .811, which is very high and indicates strong internal consistency among the 09 items. The developed knowledge test was found to be highly stable and dependable measurement. Keywords: Disaster, response, knowledge scale, reliability, validity