Adaptation of the Environmental Worry Index into Turkish: A Validity and Reliability Study on Teacher Candidates

Purpose: In the present research, it was aimed to adapt the Environmental Worry Index (EWI) developed by Oguntayo et al. (2023) into Turkish. Methodology: The study was conducted with the participation of 508 teacher candidates. Exploratory graph analysis (EGA), exploratory factor analysis (EFA) and confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) were performed for the validity studies. The reliability of the measurements collected via the Turkish form of the scale was examined via the Cronbach's alpha internal consistency coefficient. Corrected item total correlations were calculated for item discrimination, and Ferguson Delta was computed to provide a discrimination index for the entire scale. Findings: The EGA outputs and the results of parallel analysis run within the scope of EFA revealed a single-factor structure unlike the two-dimensional original form of the scale. In EFA, the variance explained for the single-factor solution was determined as 45.80% and the factor loadings ranged between .44 and .80. The CFA results showed that the fit indices for the unidimensional model were within the recommended limits and the factor loadings of the items varied between .41 and .71. Cronbach’s alpha coefficient was estimated as .84 and corrected item total correlations ranged between .36 and .62. The Ferguson’s delta statistic, on the other hand, was found to be .95. Highlights: The results obtained provide evidence that the measurements collected through the Turkish form of the EWI have adequate psychometric properties.