Reliability and Validity Study of the Turkish Version of the Acceptance and Action Questionnaire for University Students

Abstract

Objective: There is increasing evidence that psychological inflexibility can be defined as the transdiagnostic concept of psychopathology.The aim of this study is to examine the reliability and validity of the Turkish version of the Acceptance and Action Questionnaire for University Students (AAQ-US) over a sample of university students. Methods: The study group consists of 189 students who study in different departments at a state university. A socio-demographic form, AAQ-US, Acceptance-Action Questionnaire-II (AAQ-II), Test Anxiety Inventory (TAI), Freiburg Mindfulness Inventory (FMI), and Depression-Anxiety-Stress-21 Scale (DASS-21) were applied. Results: The single factor and 12 item structure of the scale was confirmed. Results show the goodness-of-fit values (chi(2) = 72.802, df = 54, chi(2) / df = 1.35; RMSEA = 0.043; CFI = 0.95; TLI = 0.93; NNFI = 0.993, NFI = 0.980; SRMR = 0.071). The Cronbach's alpha coefficient for the scale was 0.932. Test-retest reliability coefficient was 0.75. The item-total correlations were between 0.584 and 0.785. AAQ-US shows a positively significant relationship with AAQ-II, DASS-21, TAI (and subscales), and a negatively significant relationship with FMI. Conclusion: The results of this study reveal that AAQ-US can be used as a reliable and valid scale for measuring psychological inflexibility in university students.