The adaptation and preliminary psychometric properties of the Derived Chemistry Anxiety Rating Scale

Abstract

The current study adapted the Derived Chemistry Anxiety Rating Scale (DCARS) into Turkish and investigated the preliminary psychometric properties of the Turkish version. The Turkish DCARS is composed of three components, which are derived from 32 Likert-type items that purport to measure anxiety experienced in chemistry-related situations. In the adaptation procedure, English–Turkish conformity, Turkish language conformity and understandability, and back translation were used. In the preliminary psychometric investigation, structural validity, content validity, concurrent validity, internal consistency, and test–retest reliability were examined. Results show that item translations have high conformity with the original items and experts found the Turkish items understandable. Validity analyses confirmed the adapted scale's three-factor structure. In addition, concurrent validity was evidenced by significant positive correlation coefficients between the scale scores and the test anxiety and state-trait anxiety scores. Reliability analyses indicate high consistency among the scale items both at the total and sub-scale levels and that scale and subscale scores were stable over time. We conclude that the Turkish DCARS is a promising assessment instrument in measuring chemistry anxiety levels among Turkish college students.