Development of transition skills to adulthood measurement tool for students with special needs

The purpose of this study is to develop a transition scale which aims the determination of major components/targets that need to be included within the Individualized Transition Plans for providing the necessary community/independent life skills to the individuals (children) with special needs in order to make them ready for maintaining their life as independent and of good quality. The target population of the study consists of voluntary students with special needs who currently attended to the 11th and 12th grade of the Special Education Vocational Training Centers in 2014-2015 academic year. The sample of the study includes 413 volunteer students with special needs in the cities of Istanbul, Ankara and Eskisehir that were determined by a purposeful sampling method. During the development of transition skills to the adulthood measurement tool, group of items in English language with 6 factor and 40 items were generated by examining the existing transition methods and scales in the literature. Afterwards, total 23 experts (academicians, assessment experts and teachers from United State of America and Turkey) views, who are highly experienced in the transition field were obtained. Based on these results, the transition measurement tool was changed to 3-point likert scale consisting of 7 factors and 43 items. The pilot application was performed with 38 students with special needs, and then the transition scale was applied to 413 students with special needs after necessary adjustments were completed. The factor analysis was performed to obtain index values for validity and reliability, and also Cronbach Alfa internal coefficient (.77) of consistence was estimated by seven structure factor. As a result of the study, it is determined that the transition skills to the adulthood measurement tool developed consisting of 29 items and seven factor can provide highly reliable and valid results. This measurement tool explained 46.5% of variation. Keywords: Transition to adulthood skills measurement tool, Individualized transition plan, Students with special needs, Community/Independent life skills, Independent/Quality of life.