Adaptation of the education participation scale (EPS) for participants in level II literacy courses

Abstract

This thesis concerns the adaptation of the Education Participation Scale (EPS), which was developed by Boshier, and last revised by Boshier (1991), for implementation in Turkish adult literacy programs. The aim of the study was to conduct research on the reliability of the adapted version of the EPS. The study was carried out in two phases. First, the translational equivalence was established and then the reliability of the Turkish form of the EPS was studied. The translational equivalence study included forward-translation of the instrument from English to Turkish followed by back-translation from Turkish to English and reconciliation sessions with experts. A test/re-test with the original English form and the translated form in Turkish was conducted by administering the alternate forms of the instrument to a group of 96 bilingual participants of adult education courses, mostly advanced courses of English as a foreign language. Highfactor-by-factor Pearson product-moment correlations (ranging from .724 to .942)between the scores of the two administrations demonstrated translational equivalence of the Turkish translation of the EPS. In the second part of the study, the final Turkish translation of the instrumentwas administered to 172 participants in level II literacy courses at eight different People̕s Education Centers (PECs) in the province of Istanbul to ascertain factor structure and internal consistency. Factor analysis yielded seven factors that were comparable to Boshier̕s factor structure. The names given to the factors by Boshier(1991) were retained for this reason. The factors were Communication Improvement, Social Contact, Educational Preparation, Professional Advancement, Family Togetherness, Social Stimulation and Cognitive Interest. The internal reliability of the adapted version of the EPS (Cronbach̕s alpha) was calculated and it was satisfactorily high, .897 for the instrument. A test/re-test of the Turkish version of the instrument was conducted at a level II literacy course, during field-testing with a two week interval, to establish that thenew form is reliable across time. High correlations at the factor level, ranging between .887 and .991 (Pearson product-moment), were obtained between the scores of the two administrations of the Turkish form of the EPS to 27 level- II-literacycourseparticipant at the Kucukcekmece PEC. Overall, the study indicated that the Turkish form of the EPS was reliable with regard to internal consistency and stability over time and it had a factor structure that was very similar to the English version of the instrument.