The Ideal Grandparent Scale: Validation in a Turkish Young Adults Population

Abstract

Aim
The aim of this study is to examine the psychometric properties of the Turkish version of The Ideal Grandparent Scale(IGS).

Method
Content and construct validity were evaluated for the psychometric measurements of the scale. In addition, language validity and reliability analyzes were performed.

Results
The language and content validity of the scale was evaluated as appropriate. In the analyzes made for construct validity, item loads, variance and fit values of the scale were found to be appropriate. In addition, in the analyzes for reliability, it was determined that the cronbach alpha value and the test-retest correlation were appropriate. The mean total score taken from the scale is 68.65 ± 20.32. It was determined that the average score given to the scale items by the experts was between 3.71 ± 0.52 and 4.00 ± 0.00.

Conclussion
It was determined that the psychometric measurements of The Ideal Grandparent Scale were appropriate and could be adapted to Turkish culture.

Full text

Ageing International
https://doi.org/10.1007/s12126-024-09555-y
Abstract
Aim The aim of this study is to examine the psychometric properties of the Turkish
version of The Ideal Grandparent Scale(IGS).
Method Content and construct validity were evaluated for the psychometric mea-
surements of the scale. In addition, language validity and reliability analyzes were
performed.
Results The language and content validity of the scale was evaluated as appropriate.
In the analyzes made for construct validity, item loads, variance and t values of the
scale were found to be appropriate. In addition, in the analyzes for reliability, it was
determined that the cronbach alpha value and the test-retest correlation were appro-
priate. The mean total score taken from the scale is 68.65 ± 20.32. It was determined
that the average score given to the scale items by the experts was between 3.71 ± 0.52
and 4.00 ± 0.00.
Conclussion It was determined that the psychometric measurements of The Ideal
Grandparent Scale were appropriate and could be adapted to Turkish culture.
Keywords Grandparents · Grandchildren · Psychometric measurement
Accepted: 29 December 2023
© The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature
2024
The Ideal Grandparent Scale: Validation in a Turkish Young
Adults Population
MelikeYavas Celik1· ZerrinCigdem2
Melike Yavas Celik
melikedogu71@gmail.com
Zerrin Cigdem
zercigdem@gmail.com
1 Faculty of Health Sciences, Department of Midwifery, Gaziantep University, Gaziantep,
Turkey
2 Faculty of Health Sciences, Department of Nursing, Istanbul Topkapı University,
Gaziantep, Turkey
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Introduction
The relationship between grandparents and grandchildren is very important and
should be satisfactory for both parties (Sciplino C, & Kinshott, 2019). In modern
societies, it is observed that young people move away from their grandparents and the
necessary bond between these two is not established (Crowley et al., 2023). However,
there was evidence that emotionally close intergenerational relationships benet both
grandparents and grandchildren (Duos et al., 2020). According to a study conducted
in our country, “living with the family” has been shown to be one of the most impor-
tant factors aecting subjective well-being in the older persons (Özlem, 2022). In
addition, a studie have shown that living with a spouse or children, which reveals the
eect of family and cultural ties in older persons individuals, increases subjective
well-being (Hassan vd., 2018). In the research conducted by the Turkish Statisti-
cal Institute (TUIK), it was observed that mothers undertake the day care of chil-
dren aged 0–5 (86% of the children). After the mother, grandmother or grandmother
are the most responsible for day care with 7.4% (TUIK, 2016). Also, Grandparents
often support grandchildren, including making grandchildren feel better emotion-
ally, bolstering grandchildren’s self-esteem, giving grandchildren advice, and giv-
ing grandchildren Money (Fowler, 2015). Grandparents spoiling grandchildren may
be socially acceptable, and grandparents have described giving their grandchildren
treats such as food as a pleasurable activity that helps their grandchildren remember
them as special grandparents (Pankhurst et al., 2019). Perhaps when grandchildren
experience a decit in tangible support from a grandparent, grandchildren feel that
a grandparent is not fully enacting their role as grandparent, which contributes to
feelings of loneliness. Alternatively, a decit in tangible support from a grandparent
could represent a lack of family connection or a weaker family system, which could
also increase loneliness. Overall, the ndings related to the negative correlates of
decits in support are consistent with propositions of an emerging theory of support
gaps (Crowley & High, 2020).In addition to this information, it has been reported that
grandchildren are also positively aected by the healthy relationship they have with
their grandparents.Grandchildren also help their grandparents with tasks that they
cannot do, such as housework and grocery shopping (Crowley et al., 2023; Crowley
& High, 2020). In this study, it was aimed to verify the psychometric properties of
the Turkish version of the Ideal grandparent scale developed by Mansson (2015) to
measure young adults’ ideal grandparents concepts.
Research Question
1. Can the ideal grandparent scale be adapted to Turkish culture?
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Method
Type of Research
It is a psychometric study to adapt the Ideal Grandparent Scale to Turkish culture.
Research Population and Sample
While all students in a university constitute the universe of the research, one of the
departments in the university was selected by using the stratied random sampling
method. In the selection process, rst of all, the names of all departments in the uni-
versity were written on a piece of paper and thrown into a bag, and it was planned to
conduct a research on the selected department. There are approximately 400 students
in this department. Among these students, 158 people between the ages of 19–35
who volunteered to participate in the research constituted the sample. The number of
samples was calculated by considering the number of items (14 items) of the scale
used. In addition, it was determined that our sample was quite sucient according to
the Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin and Barlett’s tests. (KMO = 0.96, p < 0.01).
Data Collection and Data Collection Tools
The data were collected with The Ideal Grand Parent Scale and 3 questions contain-
ing demographic data. The forms prepared in the Google Doc form were delivered
to the participants in the virtual environment and the participants who volunteered to
participate in the research lled the research form.
The Ideal Grandparent Scale (IGS) The scale was developed by Mansson (2015). The
scale consists of 14 items and one dimension. The scale can be applied to young and
adult people. The answers in the scale are scored in a 7-point Likert type, ranging
from 1 (strongly disagree) to 7 (strongly agree). There is no reverse coded item in
the scale. Scoring of the scale is obtained by taking the total average as in classical
scales. The scale has no cuto score. As the scores obtained from the scale increase,
it indicates that the grandchildren approach the ideal grandparent gure. Cronbach’s
alpha value was found to be 0.94 in Mansson’s (2015) study (Mansson, 2015). For
this study, Cronbach’s alpha value was determined as 0.97.
Analysis Strategies
Data were analyzed in SPSS and LISREL program. The translation back translation
method was used for language validity. Translations were carried out by ve experts
who are uent in the English Turkish language. Pre-evaluation of the scale was made
with the Expert Opinion. Cronbach alpha’s, test-retest application (Simple Correla-
tion Analysis) was used to test the reliability of the scale in SPSS, and construct
validity (correlation between items, loads of items, Scree Plot) was used to test the
validity of the scale. The t values of the scale were reviewed in conrmatory factor
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analysis. RMSEA, NFI, NNFI, IFI, RFI, CFI, GFI, AGFI, RMR, χ2/df t values were
evaluated to determine the degree of model t.
Language Adaptation
After obtaining permission for the Turkish validity and reliability study, The Ideal
Grandparent Scale was translated into Turkish by ve independent linguists. A com-
mon translation version was created by reviewing ve dierent translations by the
researchers. The joint translation version was translated back into English by a lin-
guist who knows the English language very well (Seçer, 2015).
Ethics of Research
Ethics committee approval was obtained from the non-interventional clinical research
ethics committee of a university in order to conduct the study. The purpose of the
research was written on the digitally prepared form and volunteerism was taken as
basis. This study was conducted in accordance with the Principles of the Declaration
of Helsinki.
Results
Content Validity
In this study, expert opinion was sought for content validity. The opinions of the
experts were evaluated using the Kendall’s W test. As a result of this test, it was deter-
mined that the opinions of the experts did not change from each other, they agreed
and there was no statistically signicant relationship between the opinions (p > 0.05).
Experts evaluated the scale items (1 point) as very necessary and (4 points) as very
appropriate. It was determined that the average score given to the scale items by the
experts was between 3.71 ± 0.52 and 4.00 ± 0.00.
Construct Validity
According to the results of the factor analysis we conducted, it was determined that
all of the items were in appropriate values (0.75–0.92) and the single-factor structure
of the scale was preserved. The variance rate of the single factor structure of the scale
was determined to be 72% (Table 1). In addition, the factor structure of the scale was
conrmed in the Scree Plot graph (Graph 1). The t values we obtained from the
conrmatory factor analysis were found to be within the desired values(RMSEA:
0.04, NFI: 0.97, NNFI: 0.97, IFI: 0.98, RFI: 0.96, CFI:0.98, GFI:0.85, AGFI:0.87,
RMR:0.06 and X2/df:2.17) (Hu and Bentler, 1998; Schermelleh-Engel et al. 2003).
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Graph 1 Scree Plot
KMO = 0.97
p < 0.01
Mean ± S.D. Item loads Cronbach’s Alpha if
Item Deleted
Item1 4.75 ± 1.71 0.83 0.69
Item2 5.13 ± 1.69 0.88 0.78
Item3 5.18 ± 1.73 0.83 0.70
Item4 4.61 ± 1.96 0.75 0.56
Item5 4.80 ± 1.81 0.86 0.73
Item6 4.86 ± 1.80 0.92 0.85
Item7 4.65 ± 1.72 0.90 0.80
Item8 5.28 ± 1.70 0.85 0.72
Item9 5.19 ± 1.57 0.85 0.73
Item10 5.38 ± 1.54 0.80 0.64
Item11 4.87 ± 1.59 0.87 0.75
Item12 4.35 ± 1.77 0.88 0.77
Item13 4.62 ± 1.66 0.83 0.70
Item14 4.97 ± 1.75 0.80 0.64
Total points
mean(min-max)
68,65 ± 20.32 min:65.46,max:71.86
Cronbach’s alpha 0.97
Test-retest r = 0.90 p < 0.01
Table 1 KMO value of the
scale, item loads, averages,
cronbach’s alpha after item
subtraction, test-retest, variance
values
The scale we exa mined; It is a
one-dimensional scale with 1%
eigenvalue and 10% variance,
which explains 72% of the total
variance.
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Reliability of Analysis
The mean total score taken from the scale is 68.65 ± 20.32 (min: 65.46, max: 71.86).
Since the scale has only one factor, correlation between factors could not be evalu-
ated. However, by examining the correlation between the scale items, it was found
that the relationship between the items was positive and strong. The Cronbach alpha’s
value of the scale was determined to be 0.97 (Table 2).
Test Re-test Analysis
In the test-retest analysis we conducted on 158 individuals independent of our sam-
ple, it was found that the scale averages of the individuals were close to each other
and the correlation coecient was 0.90. For this analysis, the same scale questions
were asked to the same participants 15 days after the pre-test. The rst mean was
66.68 ± 23.18 and the second mean was 67.82 ± 24.12 (Table 1).
Discussions
In this study, it is aimed to adapt The Ideal Grandparent Scale, which was devel-
oped for young adults who share the same family identity with their grandparents, to
describe their relationships with their grandparents to Turkish culture. According to
the analyzes made, it was seen that this adaptation was successful. The translation-
back translation method was used in the language validity of the Ideal Grandparent
Scale. Language validity is the most used method for the validity of measurement
tools. (Seçer, 2015; Bayık & Gürbüz, 2016). Another method used in the validity of
measurement tools is content validity (Crestani et al., 2017). Content validity is used
to determine how much the scale as a whole and each item in the scale explains the
subject to be evaluated (Vehid & Eral, 2014). In this study, expert opinion was sought
for content validity. The opinions of the experts were evaluated using the Kendall’s
W test. As a result of this test, it was concluded that the opinions of the experts were
similar and the scope of the scale was appropriate. As a result, it has been concluded
that the scope of the scale is appropriate and sucient for the criteria to be measured.
According to the results of the factor analysis we conducted, it was determined that
all of the items were in appropriate values (0.75–0.92) and the single-factor struc-
ture of the scale was preserved. In addition, it was found that the variance rate of
the single factor structure of the scale was 72% and the factor structure of the scale
was preserved in the Scree Plot plot. It was determined that the t values obtained
from the conrmatory factor analysis were within the desired values, providing the
construct validity of the measurement. It was determined that The ideal Grandparent
Scale which we adapted was adapted to a dierent culture and appropriate results
were achieved within this culture. It was determined that the item loads of the scale,
which was adapted to the French culture, were similar to ours and the single-factor
structure of the scale was preserved. In addition, it was observed that the t values in
the factor analysis results of the same study were similar to our study (Duos et al.,
2021). It was determined that the results of the research in which The İdeal Grand-
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Table 2 Determining the relationship between items
Items 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14
1- 0.82 0.71 0.58 0.71 0.75 0.71 0.65 0.62 0.58 0.66 0.72 0.66 0.64
20.82 - 0.78 0.62 0.77 0.81 0.79 0.70 0.70 0.64 0.72 0.75 0.70 0.66
30.71 0.78 - 0.62 0.72 0.78 0.74 0.65 0.67 0.59 0.68 0.70 0.62 0.65
40.58 0.62 0.62 - 0.70 0.66 0.65 0.62 0.58 0.54 0.62 0.65 0.56 0.55
50.71 0.77 0.72 0.70 - 0.80 0.80 0.71 0.67 0.63 0.69 0.68 0.67 0.65
60.75 0.81 0.78 0.66 0.80 - 0.87 0.78 0.74 0.68 0.74 0.80 0.75 0.75
70.71 0.79 0.74 0.65 0.80 0.87 - 0.76 0.73 0.63 0.72 0.76 0.78 0.67
80.65 0.70 0.65 0.62 0.71 0.78 0.76 - 0.75 0.70 0.70 0.73 0.67 0.65
90.62 0.70 0.67 0.58 0.67 0.74 0.73 0.75 - 0.76 0.82 0.71 0.71 0.64
10 0.58 0.64 0.59 0.54 0.63 0.68 0.63 0.70 0.76 - 0.82 0.66 0.63 0.64
11 0.66 0.72 0.68 0.62 0.69 0.74 0.72 0.70 0.82 0.82 - 0.76 0.68 0.66
12 0.72 0.75 0.70 0.65 0.68 0.80 0.76 0.73 0.71 0.66 0.76 -0.77 0.69
13 0.66 0.70 0.62 0.56 0.67 0.67 0.75 0.78 0.67 0.71 0.68 0.77 - 0.68
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parent Scale was developed were similar to our results (Mansson, 2015). Therefore,
we can say that the one-dimensional structure of this scale is copied at the cultural
level and can be copied between dierent cultures. When we evaluated the reliability
of the scale, it was determined that the Cronbach alpha’s value was 0.97. In studies
conducted in two dierent cultures where the ideal grandparent scale was applied, the
Cronbach’s alpha value was found to be 0.94 (Mansson, 2015; Duos et al., 2021).
These values showed us that our scale is suitable in terms of reliability. A test-retest
was conducted to investigate the stability of the ideal grandparent scale over time.
Test-retest reliability is also a very important factor in assessing the psychometric
properties of a scale (Bayık & Gürbüz, 2016). In the test-retest evaluation we con-
ducted, it was observed that the participants gave the same or similar answers to the
scale questions every fteen days. The results of our other analysis are as follows.
The mean total score taken from the scale is 68.65 ± 20.32 (min: 65.46, max: 71.86).
Since the scale has only one factor, correlation between factors could not be evalu-
ated. However, by examining the correlation between the scale items, it was found
that the relationship between the items was positive and strong. This result showed us
that the items of the Ideal grandparent scale were very compatible and were suitable
for the single factor structure.
Conclusions
In all analyzes, it was determined that the psychometric measurements of the Ideal
Grandparent Scale were appropriate and could be adapted to Turkish culture. In addi-
tion to these results, it can be said that the ideal grandparent scale is a scale that can
be used for many cultures and intergenerational solidarity is important for individu-
als. Ideal Grandparent Scale will provide an opportunity to examine and evaluate the
grandchild and grandparent relationship in Turkish society. Being able to determine
the ideal grandparent concepts of grandchildren thanks to this scale and being able
to evaluate the dierences between generations with this result will open the door of
many researches. In addition, nurses can determine the ideal relationship between
their grandchildren and older people and identify new approaches. It is envisaged that
this scale can be benecial in increasing the welfare of the old people.
Funding There are no funders for this study.
Data Availability Data available on request from the authors.
Declarations
Conflict of Interest The author has declared no conict of interest.
Ethics of Research Ethics committee approval was obtained from the non-interventional clinical research
ethics committee of Kilis 7 Aralık University in order to conduct the study(date: 05.05.2021/committee
number:2021/16).
The Patient Consent Patient consent was obtained from the participants in this study.
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Implications for Practice The last section (in the main text) after ‘Conclusions’ should be ‘Implications
for Practice’.
Competing Interests The authors declare that they have no competing interests.
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