Adaptation of Climate Change Stages of Change Questionnaire into Turkish: A Study of Reliability and Validity

Abstract

There is growing interest in climate change education, however there are very limited tools in elementary and secondary level to measure students’ understanding. Departing from this need, this study aimed to adapt the Climate Change Stages of Change Questionnaire into Turkish and examine its validity and reliability. The adaptation process stated with the International Test Commission guidelines and involved expert consultation, forward-backward translation, and pilot testing. The latter phase included large scale data collection and the questionnaire was distributed to randomly selected middle school students in three different Turkish cities. 493 sixth- and seventh-grade students participated in the large-scale data collection. Confirmatory Factor Analysis supported the original five-factor structure, yielding acceptable fit indices (e.g., RMSEA = 0.075; CFI = 0.915). Internal consistency reliability ranged from acceptable to high across most subscales, although the two-item contemplation subscale showed a lower alpha value. Results indicate that the Turkish version of the CCSOCQ is a valid and reliable tool for assessing students’ behavioral change stages regarding climate action. The scale can serve as a valuable resource in designing targeted climate education interventions and evaluating their impact on students’ progression toward sustainable behaviors.