A Turkish Language Equivalence of the Exercise of Self-Care Agency Scale

Abstract

This article is about the pilot test of a Turkish version of the Exercise of Self-Care Agency Scale (ESCA) using a randomized convenience sample of 119 bilingual Turkish adolescents. The instrument was translated into Turkish, back translated, and pilot tested to linguistic equivalence. Bilingual participants were randomly assigned to four groups. Each participant was administered both the English and the Turkish versions of the scale but in different order at 5-week intervals. The results show that the Turkish version of the ESCA was linguistically equal to the English form. Test-retest correlations were acceptably high (r = .80 to .90). Internal consistency of the total scale of the ESCA was adequate, with an alpha coefficient of .89 for the Turkish version and .88 for the English version. Further research in the development of this translated form would need to demonstrate its applicability and generalizability to monolingual Turkish adolescents.