THE VALIDITY AND RELIABILITY STUDY OF THE TURKISH VERSION OF NEGATİVE ATTITUDE TOWARD IMMIGRANTS SCALE

Abstract

In recent years, a significant increase has been observed in migrations from underdeveloped countries to developed countries. This increase has led to cultural, ethnic and social discrepancies and conflicts between the immigrants and the host communities. This has led to increased host communities' feelings of hostility towards immigrants. In this study, it was aimed to examine the psychometric properties of the scale by using the Turkish validity and reliability analyzes in order to adapt Negative Attitude Toward Immigrants Scale developed by Varela et al. (2013) to Turkish culture. The scale is a five-point Likert type scale consisting of 12 items in its original form. The scale is a self-report scale aimed at identifying negative attitudes towards immigrants and examining the effects of these prejudices. The sample of the study consists of 297 undergraduate students studying in the Social Work Department of Karabük University in 2016-2017 academic year. In order to test the construct validity of the scale, both exploratory and confirmatory factor analyzes were applied. According to the results of exploratory factor analysis, the scale was found to be under a single factor as in the original form. This single factor structure explains 43.2% of the total variance. The confirmatory factor analysis showed that the single factor structure of the scale had good fit indices (X2=134.19, sd=54, RMSEA = 0.071, RMR = 0.055, CFI = 0.97, GFI = 0.93, NFI = 0.95, AGFI = 0.90). As a result of the reliability analyzes applied to the scale, it was found that Cronbach's alpha value was .81, two half test reliability was .67, item total test correlation coefficients ranged between .85 - .87 and test retest reliability coefficient was r = .82. As in the original form of the Negative Attitude towards Migrants scale, it can be said that its single factor structure is a valid and reliable measurement tool. Within the scope of the study, it was found that there was a statistically significant difference between the scores of negative attitude towards immigrants and participants gender and views of the about the living conditions of the immigrants. As in the original form of the Negative Attitude towards Immigrants scale, it can be said that the single factor structure is a measurement instrument with measurement reliability.