Mother Tongue Attitude Scale (Mtas)

Abstract

The main aim of this study is to develop a valid and reliable measurement scale that can be used to identify the bilingual individual’s attitude towards a mother tongue that is undergoing attrition due to a dominant second language. Scale research was applied to a total of 439 Kurdish-Turkish bilingual participants aged from 17-35 living in Turkey. An exploratory factor analysis and a reliability analysis were performed to determine the validity of the scale. The scale developed according to the results of exploratory factor analysis consists of 12 items in total from three dimensions, behavioral, cognitive and affective. KMO measure adequacy was found to be 0.874 and the strength of the relationship among variables by the Bartlett test was found to be 2047.005 and Chi-square output was statistically significant (p<0.05). The item factor loadings of the scale ranged from 0.845 to 0.613, and item total correlation values ranged from 0.671 to 0.478. In addition, the total Cronbach Alpha reliability coefficient of the scale was 0.874; accordingly, the Cronbach Alpha reliability coefficients for the subdimensions of the scale were estimated to be between 0.801 and 0.8769. Moreover, the fit indices of the model were examined and the Chi-square value (x2 = 256.01, N = 439, do = 51, p = 0.00) was significant. The fit index values of the scale were: AGFI=0.86, RMSEA= 0.096, SRMR=0.066, CFI=0.90, IFI=0.95, NFI=0.94, NNFI= 0.94. It was concluded that the scale developed for this study is valid and reliable, theoretically providing a basis for evaluating the attitude of individuals towards their mother tongues.