Validity and reliability study of Turkish version of abbreviated science anxiety scale

Abstract

The aim of this study is to adapt “Abbreviated Science Anxiety Scale”(ASAS) developed by Megreya et al. (2021) to Turkish and to investigate the reliability and validity of Turkish-ASAS. In the adaptation study, some steps were determined and implemented. After the English-Turkish translation validity of ASAS was ensured, data were collected within the scope of the survey study for reliability and validity studies. The study group in the scale adaptation study are experts (teaching staff in science education, Science teacher, and English teacher) and 410 middle school students (Grade 5, 6, 7 and 8). After the descriptive statistics and item analysis were made, a exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis was performed to reveal the factor structure. The adaptation stage findings shows the two-factor structure of ASAS. These factors are “learning science anxiety” and “science evaluation anxiety”. Cronbach Alpha reliability coefficient for ASAS-Turkish was calculated as 0.703. As in the original scale, ASAS-Turkish is a 5-point Likert type scale and consisting of 9 items. The results show that ASAS-Turkish is a short, valid and reliable tool. Low scores on the ASAS indicate low anxiety and high scores indicate high anxiety. It can be used to guide and enhance scientific study.