I access mine like this.. Please see example below
In my preference.xml file:
<ListPreference
android:key="SQS_ENDPOINT"
android:dialogTitle="Choose an option please"
android:entries="@array/sqsItems"
android:entryValues="@array/sqsValues"
android:title="SQS Endpoints" >
</ListPreference>
my String.xml:
<string-array name="sqsItems">
<item>US East (N. Virginia)</item>
<item>Asia Pacific (Singapore)</item>
<item>Asia Pacific (Tokyo)</item>
</string-array>
<string-array name="sqsValues">
<item>sqs.us-east-1.amazonaws.com</item>
<item>sqs.ap-southeast-1.amazonaws.com</item>
<item>sqs.ap-northeast-1.amazonaws.com</item>
</string-array>
And then I get the selected value like this from anywhere:
SharedPreferences pref = PreferenceManager
.getDefaultSharedPreferences(context);
String END_POINT = pref.getString("SQS_ENDPOINT", "");