A Scale Development Study: Food Label Reading Attitude Scale

Abstract

Aim: The food label is an effective tool which protects the consumers in terms of safety and nutrition. Food label provides the information about the packaged food which helps customer to determine the food quality and to make better choices. As, the food label reading attitude of Turkish population is not well known and there is no valid and reliable scale to measure, it is aimed to develop “Food Label Reading Attitude Scale” in this study.
Subjects and methods: Food Label Reading Attitude Scale has been developed by reviewing literature, taking opinion from experts (n=5) and questions from similar articles. 33-items scale has been developed and applied to a pilot group of university students (n=50) and unnecessary three items were removed from the questionnaire. A total of 417 volunteer students studying at Eastern Mediterranean University in the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus has been examined by 30-items Food Label Reading Scale. Exploratory factor analysis and Confirmatory factor analysis were investigated to determine structural validity analysis of the scale. Cronbach alpha test, split-half test and item-total correlation were used to determine the reliability of the scale.
Results: 30-items, 5-point likert scale developed to measure food label reading attitude. Exploratory factor analysis was investigated by Kaiser Meger-Olkin (KMO) coefficient which was found to be 0.93, Barlett Sphericity test and factor loadings between 0.55-0.75 was found to be statistically significant. Items with factor loads below 0.5 were removed from the scale and the scale has it latest form with 20 items. The Cronbach Alpha internal consistency coefficient was 0.929, and the goodness of fit index (GFI) values of the confirmatory factor analysis were acceptable. As a result, 5-likert, 20-item scale was identified as valid and reliable.
Conclusion: This scale is the first valid and reliable scale formed in Turkish language which measures food label reading attitude of Turkish community. We believe it contributes to the further studies in related topic.