A turkish version of foreign language anxiety scale: reliability and validity

Abstract

It is evident that some factors such as learners' language proficiency levels, cultural elements, differences regarding teaching and learning contexts may affect the results obtained from the English version of Foreign Language Anxiety Scale (FLAS) (Horwitz, 1986). In addition, the number of factors in the scale administered in different languages does not show a consistency. What is more, the number of those studies on the translated and adopted versions of FLAS is too limited to draw conclusions in terms of English as a foreign language (EFL) context in Turkey. Thus, this study aims to develop a Turkish version of FLAS. Five independent Turkish translations were made and used to develop a single Turkish version. After identifying the discrepancies between English and Turkish versions, the Turkish version was altered accordingly and reached a satisfactory agreement. The FLAS scale in both English and Turkish was administered to 85 EFL learners at advanced level. Results showed that both versions obtained reliability regarding their internal consistency, while the Turkish version seemed to have a higher level of reliability coefficient than the English version. It was also concluded that both versions obtained construct validity. It was recommended that the Turkish version of FLAS is an appropriate instrument to measure the levels of foreign language anxiety among Turkish EFL learners.