Development and validation of the Hocus Focus Magic Performance Evaluation Scale for health professions personnel in the United States

PURPOSE: This study was conducted to describe the development and validation of the Hocus Focus Magic Performance Evaluation Scale (HFMPES), which is used to evaluate the competency of health professions personnel in delivering magic tricks as a therapeutic modality. METHODS: A 2-phase validation process was used. Phase I (content validation) involved 16 magician judges who independently rated the relevance of each of the 5 items in the HFMPES and established the veracity of its content. Phase II evaluated the psychometric properties of the HFMPES. This process involved 2 magicians using the HFMPES to independently evaluate 73 occupational therapy graduate students demonstrating 3 magic tricks. RESULTS: The HFMPES achieved an excellent scale-content validity index of 0.99. Exploratory factor analysis of the HFMPES scores revealed 1 distinct factor with alpha coefficients ≥0.8 across the 3 magic tricks. The construct validity of the HFMPES scores was further supported by evidence from a known-groups analysis, in which the Mann–Whitney U-test showed significant difference in HFMPES scores between participants with different levels of experience in delivering the 3 magic tricks. The inter-rater reliability coefficients were ≥0.75 across the 3 magic tricks, indicating that the competency of health professions personnel in delivering the 3 magic tricks could be evaluated precisely. CONCLUSION: Preliminary evidence supported the content and construct validity of the HFMPES, which was found to have good internal consistency and inter-rater reliability in evaluating health professions personnel’s competency in delivering magic tricks.