Turkish Version of the Revised Sense of Purpose Scale 2 (SOPS-2): A Preliminary Study for Validity and Reliability

The Sense of Purpose Scale 2 (SOPS-2) is a revised version of the Sense of Purpose Scale (SOPS) which aims to evaluate sense of purpose with a multidimensional conceptualization. The purpose of the present study was to validate a Turkish version of the SOPS-2 for Turkish college students, by first translating it into the Turkish language, and then examining its psychometric properties. With this purpose, data were collected from 237 undergraduate students, studying at a statefounded Turkish university, in the fall term of 2018-2019 academic year. Following the translation procedures, the psychometric properties of the Turkish SOPS2 have been analyzed using Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA), criterion-related validity, and internal consistency methods. Results of CFA indicated that the original threedimensional model (Awareness of purpose, Altruistic purpose, and Awakening to purpose) is accaptable (χ2/df=2.14, CFI= .96; GFI= .91 ve NFI= .93; RMSEA= .07). Results of Pearson Moments Correlation revealed that the Turkish version of the SOPS-2 had satisfactory criterion-related validity with the measure of satisfaction with life (r=.54, p<.01). Furthermore, item-total correlations ranged between .44 and .79, and Cronbach’s alpha coefficient calculated for the total scale (α=.91) and for the Awareness of purpose, Altruistic purpose and Awakening to purpose sub-scales (α= .92, α=.84, and α=.84, respectively) were found high, indicating good internal consistency. As a result, findings of this preliminary study suggest that the Turkish version of the SOPS-2 is a valid and reliable tool for measuring sense of purpose in life for Turkish undergraduate students.


INTRODUCTION
Man's search for meaning and purpose of his life is as old as human history. The concepts of "meaning" and "purpose", which have been one of the most questioned fields of philosophy over the years, started to take part in the psychology literature with the views of Alfred Adler. According to Adler's theory of Individual psychology, the mental health of man is determined by a purpose. At an early age, every human being determines the purpose of life for himself and behave according to this life purpose. So that they can think, feel and dream in line with the purpose of their life (Adler, 2008).
Victor Frankl is another psychologist that emphasizes the importance of the meaning and purpose of human life in the field of psychology. Frankl's Logotherapy studies in the 1940s are accepted as the first systematic study regarding the meaning of life. According to him, the meaning of life is an essential source of motivation that allows people to continue living. Meaning in life is a concept that is evaluated with the purpose of life, besides being a realistic and natural motive brought by innate. In a sense, the purpose is the final reason for living. Therefore, the main purpose of Logotherapy is to help the individual to find meaning and purpose in life (Frankl, 2007). Although it is possible to see studies in the literature that mention the concepts of meaning and purpose after Frankl, there are some disagreements on the relationship between the two concepts. Some psychologists claim that the meaning and purpose are the identical concepts, while some emphasize the distinct nature of these two (George and Park 2016). According to psychologists who emphasize the difference between meaning and purpose, the purpose is related with the future-oriented life goals, and as a result, could be described as the motivational component of meaning in life (Martela and Steger 2016;Reker and Wong 1988).
As Alfred Adler and Victor Frankl, the existentialist psychotherapist Irvin Yalom also frequently emphasizes the meaning and purpose in his works. According to Yalom (2011), when people who have a certain purpose in their lives face with death, they can continue to live in a more qualified way as they lived their life with satisfaction and full of excitement. So they can better understand the value of life.
Based on the views of the theorists who emphasize the importance of the purpose in human life, a number of studies have been conducted to determine the various correlates of this concept. The findings of these studies showed that purpose in life is positively correlated with mental health (Zika and Chamberlain, 1992); positive affect and happiness (Burrow and Hill 2011); empathy (Mariano and Savage 2009); vitality, openness, focus, and humility (Bronk, 2008); satisfaction with life, hope, contentment, and motivation (Bronk, Hill, Lapsley, Talib, and Finch, 2009); and generosity (Mariano and Savage 2009) and negatively correlated with the incidence of depression, suicidal ideation, substance use, anxiety and problems (Harlow, Newcomb and Bentler, 1986).
The findings of the research showing the relationship of the life purpose with mental-health and psychological well-being (Battista and Almond, 1973;Zika and Chamberlain, 1992) make it important to study this concept in psychological counseling and therapy processes. In addition, the fact that people who do not have a purpose in life are to apply more for therapy (Battista and Almond, 1973) also supports the importance of the concept of purpose for counselors and researchers in this field. However, arranging studies aimed at improving individuals' life purposes is closely related to the development of appropriate measurement tools.
Frankl's studies on the purpose of life contributed greatly to the development of measurement tools in this field. Firstly, the test that he worked on at the end of the 50s was developed by Crumbaugh and Maholick (1964) and continued to be used as Purpose In Life-PIL test. In the following years, other tests were developed by Battista and Almond (1973), called Seeker of Life Regard Index-LRI, and by Crumbaugh (1977), called Seeking of Noetic Goals. Besides these, various scales have been developed and used which measure the purpose as a sub-dimension of various scales (Reker and Peacock 1981;Ryff, 1989) or measure the purpose as a one-dimensional structure (Bundick et al. 2006;Hutzell and Finck 1994;Robbins and Francis 2000).
Recently, Sharma, Yukhymenko-Lescroart and Kang (2018) have begun to work on a new measuring tool to address the limitations of the measures of life purpose and to eliminate them.
According to these researchers, the previously developed scales for the purpose of life were merely evaluating individuals with goal-directedness and ignoring their non-personal purposes beyond-the-self dimension. There were also some items that were not relevant to the purpose of life in the present objective scales (Zika and Chamberlain, 1992). Also, these scales were taking "purpose" as a result (Dik, Steger, Gibson, and Peisner, 2011) rather than focusing on it as a process through which people awaken to their life's purpose over time.
Taking into account all these limitations in the existing scales measuring the purpose of life, Sense of Purpose Scale (SOPS), which is a multidimensional scale to measure altruistic purposes and prosocial behaviors, has been developed firstly (Sharma, Yukhymenko-Lescroart and Kang, 2018). The validity and reliability studies of this scale, consisting of 17 items and three sub-dimensions including Awareness to Purpose, Altruistic Purpose, and Awakening to Purpose, were performed on young adults.
Then, a revised version of SOPS, SOPS-2, has been validated for emerging adults ranging in age from 18 to 80 years (Sharma and Yukhymenko-Lescroart, in press) and adults including undergraduate and graduate students, university instructors and staff (Yukhymenko-Lescroart and Sharma, 2019).
The purpose of the present study is to validate a Turkish version of the SOPS-2 for Turkish college students, by first translating it into the Turkish language, and then examining its psychometric properties.

METHOD Participants
This study was carried out on a total of 237 (182 females and 55 males) undergraduate students, studying at a state-founded Turkish university (Bursa Uludağ University), in the fall term of 2018-2019 academic year. A convenience sampling method was used in the study. Participants were Faculty of Education students enrolled in six different departments (Elementary Education, 13.5%; Computer Education and Instructional Technology, 11.4%; Mathematics and Science Education, 24.9%; Foreign Language Education, 11%; Fine Arts Education, 13.1%; and Educational Sciences, 26.2%) of the faculty. Ages of participants were 18-33 with a mean of 20.81 ( SD=2.37). The distribution of participants across gender groups and departments are presented in Table 1.  confirmed both a correlated three factors model and a bifactor model for the SOPS2.

Procedure
To develop

Data Analyses
The SPSS 23.0 (Statistical Package for Social Sciences) and AMOS 24 software packages were used for data analyses. CFA was employed to assess the factorial validity of the Turkish version of the SOPS-2. Pearson moments correlation coefficients were calculated to examine criterion validity by determining the relationship between SOPS-2 (total and sub-scale scores) and SWLS scores. Cronbach's alpha coefficients and item-total correlations were calculated for internal consistency. Significance levels of .001 and .01 were used for statistical analyses.

Results of Validity Studies
CFA was conducted for the Turkish form of the SOPS-2 to test the original three-dimensional model fit. Maximum Likelihood (ML) estimation was chosen, since the data set met the "skewness less than 2 and kurtosis less than 7" criterion (West, Finch, and Curran, 1995). The indices of the model fit  Table 2.  (2003) Results of CFA based on 14 items of the Turkish form of the SOPS-2 indicated an acceptable fit (χ2/df=2.14, CFI= .96, GFI= .91, NFI= .93 and RMSEA= .07). All parameters were significant at p<.001. Therefore, the three-dimensional factor structure of the 14-item Turkish form of the SOPS-2 was supported for the sample. Findings are illustrated in Figure 1. Correlation coefficients calculated to examine the relationship between SOPS-2 (total and three subscale) scores and SWLS scores. Results are presented in Table 3. Additionally, all sub-scale scores of the SOPS-2 were found to be significantly and positively correlated with each other and the SOPS-2 total score as another evidence of construct validity of the scale.

Results of Reliability Studies
To examine the internal consistency of the Turkish form of the SOPS-2, Cronbach's alpha coefficients were calculated for the total score and the three sub-scale scores. Results revealed good internal consistency for the overall scale (α=.92), and the AWR (α=.93), the ALT (α=.84), and the AWK (α=.84) sub-scales. Results are presented in Table 4. Item-total correlations, explaining the relationships between the test items and the total scores obtained from the test, were also calculated to examine the reliability of the Turkish SOPS-2 (See Table   5.). Positive item-total correlations more than .30 indicates high internal consistency (Büyüköztürk 2011, 171 Overall, the Turkish form of the SOPS-2 was found as valid and reliable with its threedimensional 14-item nature to use with Turkish undergraduate students.

CONSCLUSION
The aim of this study was to develop the Turkish version of the SOPS-2 (Yukhymenko-Lescroart and Sharma, 2019; Sharma and Yukhymenko-Lescroart, in press) which is a revised form of the SOPS (Sharma, Yukhymenko-Lescroart and Kang, 2018), and then to conduct a preliminary study to examine its psychometric properties. Results of CFA conducted to examine the construct validity of the On the other hand, this preliminary study has some limitations. Further studies need to be conducted to eliminate these limitations. First, this study was conducted with a group of students from the faculty of education of a Turkish state university, with the convenience sampling method. Therefore, the participants of this study may not represent all of the Turkish undergraduate students and Turkish culture. Adaptation studies of the SOPS-2 should be carried out with a more representative sample of Turkish undergraduate students and Turkish culture in future studies.
Furthermore, Yukhymenko-Lescroart and Sharma (2019) reported in a study in which students, academic and administrative staff between ages 18-80 were employed that the psychometric properties of the SOPS-2 were different for the staff and the students. Taking this result into consideration, individuals from different age groups can be used and compared in future studies for Turkish adaptation of the SOPS-2.
As the number of male participants in this study was less than the female participants, gender differences among males and females on the basis of SOPS-2 scores could not be evaluated. With the studies that have equal or almost equal gender distribution, this deficiency could be eliminated.
Finally, in this study, it was not explicitly investigated whether or not SOPS-2 provides consistent measurements depending on time. In future studies, this deficiency could be eliminated for the Turkish SOPS-2 by conducting test-retest reliability studies.