The reliability and validity of Turkish Form of the Gender Constancy Scale

Abstract

Some of the cognitive development psychologists suggest that children’s comprehension of their own bodies and/or the process of constructing a constant gender identity is universal, same as the development of process of comprehension and conversation of physical objects. The aim of this research is to do linguistic equivalency, validity-reliability study of Gender Constancy Scale (2004) which is reorganized according to stages of acquiring social gender suggested by Kohlberg, based on cognitive development theory. Subjects of the study were 300 children aged among 3 to 7 and randomly selected from kindergartens, day-care centers of the universities and primary schools around those universities within the Istanbul City, in 2006-2007 curriculum years. The reliability study of the Gender Constancy Scale was investigated with means of sub-scales of the measurement scale, standard deviation values, results of test-retest, and conformity coefficients between the independent observers, internal consistency coefficients and item-correlation analysis and construct validity works were done to reach validity of the measurement scale. Internal consistency coefficients of the adopted measurement scale and the English one do not show a similarity: Cronbach Alpha coefficients for identity level .50, for stability level .61, for motivation level .71, for consistency level (both girls and boys) .91. It is found out that the Turkish scale’ internal consistency coefficients for the identity level are significantly lower and it is significantly higher for the general consistency. Conducting item-total statistics, which is used as a way to determine scale’s items’ reliability and validity, has shown that when some items were deleted from the scale, the Cronbach’s Alpha value has increased. However, since this was a study of adaptation of a scale, none of the items have been deleted from the adopted scale. Findings of the study suggest that consistency level of Gender Constancy Scale is only valid and reliable for 4 – 7 age group children.