Adaptation of the children's food literacy instrument to Turkish: A validity and reliability study

The aim of this study is to adapt the Child Food Literacy Instrument to Turkish and to evaluate its validity and reliability. The study was designed methodologically. The study was conducted between January 2022 and June 2022, with 303 students between the ages of 12-14, studying at Osman Zeki Yücesan Secondary School, Kadir Has Secondary School and Mehmet Tarman Secondary Schools in the 2021-2022 academic year. A pilot study was conducted with 36 students and the students participating in the pilot study were not included in the validity and reliability analysis. In order to measure the invariance of the scale against time, it was re-tested to 219 students 2 weeks after the first application. Data were collected with the sociodemographic data form and the Child Food Literacy Instrument. The analysis of the data was done with JASP (Version 0.16.1) and the level of significance was accepted as 5% in all statistics. For the validity evaluation, translation-back translation method for language validity, Davis technique for content validity, pilot study for surface and face validity, and confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) for construct validity were used. For the reliability evaluation; Cronbach's Alpha and the Intraclass Correlation (ICC) coefficient were calculated. Model validity was tested with CFA as a two-level measurement model. Root Mean Square Error of Approximation (RMSEA), χ2/sd and Goodness of Fit Index (GFI) statistics are in good agreement and Comparative Fit Index (CFI), Tucker-Lewis Index (TLI) and Standardized Root-Mean Square Residual (SRMR) statistics are at acceptable levels (RMSEA=0.032, χ2/sd =1.312, GFI= 0.983, CFI=0.927, TLI=0.922, SRMR=0.062). The Cronbach's Alpha coefficient for the scale total score is 0.793, which is quite good. ICC was calculated as 0.866 for the total scale score. The Turkish Adaptation of the Child Food Literacy Instrument is a valid and reliable measurement tool. It can be used safely for the evaluation of food literacy levels in Turkish children aged 12-14 years.