The investigation of the validity and reliability of nursing students perceptions of dishonesty scale

The aim of the methodological study is to investigate whether Nursing Students Perceptions of Dishonesty Scale developed by McClung and Schneider is valid and reliable tool for Turkish language and culture. The study was conducted between April and August 2018 in Manisa Celal Bayar University Faculty of Health Sciences with 368 students attending 2nd, 3rd and 4th grade. The data were collected by the "Student Introductory Questionnaire", "Nursing Students Perceptions of Dishonesty Scale" and "Academic Dishonesty Tendency Scale". The evaluation of the data was made using language validity, content validity, criterion validity, construct validity, stability and internal consistency analyses. The translation-back translation method was used for the language validity. Content validity indexes have been calculated and for all items' the content validity index values range from 0.80 to 1.00. In order to obtained the criterion-related validity of the scale, the Pearson Correlation coefficient was calculated between the total scores of the "Cheating" subscale of Nursing Students Perceptions of Dishonesty Scale and the total scores of the "Cheating" subscale of Academic Dishonesty Tendency Scale applied as a criterion test. The correlation coefficient obtained is (rxy = 0,617; p = 0,000). Confirmatory factor analysis was carried out to ensure the construct validity. The analysis result, goodness of fit values of the scale was obtained as χ2 /sd (Chi-square/df), (8678,488/2018)=4,11 , CFI=0,914 , TLI=0,910 ve RMSEA=0,09. The Pearson coefficients of subscales of the scale were found between 0.724-0.924 in the test-retest analyzes performed to provide the stability reliability. The cronbach α coefficients for the subscales of the scale ranged from 0.701 to 0.971. The results of these analyzes, the values obtained were found to meet the values required for validity and reliability. As a result, the "Nursing Students Perceptions of Dishonesty Scale " is a valid and reliable scale for Turkish society. Keywords: dishonesty; academic dishonesty; validity; reliability; nursing; student