Development of Attitudes toward Future Scale and evaluation of the reliability and validity in Turkish population

Abstract

Objective: The aim of this study is to develop a data collection tool which targets to determine individuals' attitudes toward future. Methods: This methodological study was carried out on 870 individuals who agreed to participate in the study in Istanbul. Data were collected by a survey consisted of an Information Form and the Attitudes toward Future Scale (Draft). During the development of the scale, researchers created a draft pool of 55 scale items. The draft scale consisted of 32 items after content validity and it consisted of 21 items after the item total correlation analyzes. In the second stage of the scale development, construct and criterion validities, time stability and internal consistency reliability of the draft scale have been tested. Percentage, item total score correlations, exploratory factor analysis, paired samples t test and Cronbach's alpha coefficient were performed for data analyses. Results: The mean age of the participants was 28.10 +/- 10.56; 66.8% of them were women, 28.6% of them were married, 68.4% had a bachelor's degree, 22.7% had a child, 60% of them had mid-level of income. It was found that content validity indices of 32 items were over 0.80, item total correlation values of 21 items were over 0.350 and these items separated four factors that explain 55.26% of total variance. It was found that internal consistency coefficients varied between 0.70-0.87 in subscales and 0.91 in total scale. Conclusion: Attitudes Toward Future Scale which consists of 21 statements in four subscales is valid and reliable tool.