The adaptation study of transactional distance scale

Abstract

The aim of this study is to adapt the Transactional Distance Scale developed by Zhang (2003) to Turkish culture and to examine its psychometric properties. The research was conducted on 357 university students of Distance Education Programmes from Amasya, Anadolu, Bartın and Maltepe University. In the first phase, linguistic equivalence of the scale was analyzed and psychometric properties were examined after the first phase was confirmed. The construct validity of the scale was analyzed through confirmatory analyses and these analyses demonstrated that this version was in accordance with the original form. With regard to the reliability of the scale, Cronbach alpha internal consistency coefficient, corrected item-total correlations were measured and t tests between means of upper 27% and lower 27% points were used, as well. Results of these analyses prove that the fit indexes of the adapted scale are at an acceptable degree and Cronbach alpha coefficients vary between 0.76 and 0.95. Cronbach alpha internal consistency coefficient of the Turkish version of the scale was calculated as 0.92. According to these results, this scale can be assessed as a valid and reliable measurement tool. © 2016 Elsevier B.V., All rights reserved.