Designing and evaluating the validity and reliability of environmental behavior tools

Abstract

Background and Objective: The most important first step in promoting environmental performance is identifying and evaluating environmental behavior. In this regard the measuring tool is considered an environmental behavior questionnaire. Validity and reliability of the questionnaire before its application is essential. Thus this research was conducted with the aim of assessing the validity and reliability of questionnaires. Materials and Methods: The environmental behavior questionnaire containing 36 questions was designed using the literature review and expert panel opinions. Then, the validity of the questionnaire was assessed by content validity index (CVI) and content validity ratio (CVR) and its reliability was evaluated using Cronbach's alpha coefficient by 14 experts and 40 target groups. Finally, data were analyzed by SPSS 20 software. Results: The results showed that the questionnaire with 36 items had CVI and CVR of 0.896 and 0.726, respectively, and 4 items should be excluded from the questionnaire due to non-compliance with content validity indices. The questionnaire exhibited high internal consistency and hence was acceptable owing to the Cronbach's alpha coefficient of 0.85. Conclusion: The questionnaire was designed to evaluate environmental performance of citizens and can be cited in future studies.

Keywords

• environmental behavior
• questionnaire
• validity
• reliability