Mother Tongue Attitude Scale for Bilingual Individuals: the Study of Validity and Reliability

Abstract

The main aim of this study to develop a validand reliable measurement scale that can be usedto identify bilingual individuals’ attitude towardstheir mother tongue. The scale research was app lied to a total of 310 Kurdish-Turkish bilingualparticipants aged between 16-65 living in VanCity -Turkey. An exploratory factor analysis anda reliability analysis were performed to determinethe validity of the scale. The scale developed ac cording to the results of explatory factor analysisconsist of 31 items in total from three dimensions(Affective, Language anxiety and prestige, Lan guage preference and proficiency). Kaiser-Ma yer-Olkin (KMO) measure adequacy was found tobe .91 and the strength of the relationship amongvariables by the Barlett test was found to be andChi-square output was statistically significant (χ²= 3949,540, p = 0.000). According to this resultsthe factor analysis is fit. The scales’ item factorof the sub-dimensions ranged from in the first di mension between 0.482 and 0.773, in the seconddimension between 0.335 and 0.720, in the thirddimension between 0,464 and 0,726. In addition,the total Cronbach Alpha reliability coefficientfor the sub-dimensions of the scale in turn was0.872, 0.885 and 0.802 and total Cronbach Alphareliability coefficient of the scale was .915. Mo reover, the fit indices of model were exanimatedand the Chi-square value ($x^2$=924.69, df=428,p=0.00000) is significant. The fit index values ofscale: NNFI= 0.96, NFI= 0,93, CFI= 0.96, RM SEA= 0.006. It was concluded that the scale de veloped for this study was a valid, reliable andtheoretically had a basis for evaluating the attitu de of individuals towards their mother tongues