The Turkish Version of The Mentor Behavior Scale: Validity and Reliability Study

Abstract

Aim: University is a stressful and worrying period for students who have just started their university education, as it requires struggle on many issues such as the increase in the expectation of academic success from the students, their adaptation to the new social environment, becoming more individual, and the responsibilities of their relations with their same sex and opposite sex. Therefore, students have difficulty in coping with sources of stress. Mentoring practice has an important place in learning new skills, adapting to new behaviors, acquiring new attitudes, establishing connections between practice and theory, and providing psychological and social support and guidance for student nurses. Peer mentoring includes peers with similar conditions supporting each other in the learning process. It is defined as educational and social activities carried out by experienced upper-class students, who are not professional instructors, together with lower-class students, and that enable students to develop in terms of knowledge, attitudes and skills. It has been determined that there are not enough scales to evaluate the behaviors of mentors in the practice of peer mentoring in nursing education in our country. In this study, it was aimed to investigate the validity and reliability of the Turkish version of the Mentor Behavior Scale.Methods: It was designed as methodological study. It was applied at a nursing faculty in Turkey, which engages in the peer mentorship application. A total of 547 students, who are mentees, participated in the mentorship application study. Data were collected with the “Student Introductory Questionnaire Form”, the “Mentor Behavior Scale” and the “Peer Mentor Assessment Scale”. The language, scope, criterion and structural validity, invariability and internal consistency reliability analyses were made for providing validity and reliability.Results: The translation to Turkish and back translation to English of the Mentor Behavior Scale were made for language validity. The Scope Validity Index values varied between 0.80-1.00. Confirmatory Factor Analysis was made for structural validity, and it was found that the model data fit was rather high. The Cronbach’s Alpha Coefficient of Reliability was found to be α=0.937. The Cronbach’s Alpha Coefficients of Reliability for the sub-dimensions of mentorship relationship structure, participation-relationship, autonomous support and adequacy support were obtained at α=0.976, α=0.957, α=0.860 and α=0.960, respectively. A positive and significant fit was observed according to the Pearson Product-Moment Correlation Coefficient in the test-retest analysis.Conclusions: The Turkish version of the Mentor Behavior Scale is a valid and reliable tool for the evaluation of mentors by mentees.