DOI: 10.30586/pek.1955620 ISSN: 2587-2567

Development and Psychometric Validation of the Political Silence Scale

Mehmet Kapusızoğlu, Ahmet Karadağ
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Political silence refers to the failure of political thought to translate into political action for various reasons. Individuals may remain silent out of fear that future interests will be harmed or to secure specific benefits. This study aims to conceptualize political silence among individuals as a multidimensional construct by focusing on academics in Türkiye and to develop a valid and reliable measurement scale. The research, based on a quantitative design, includes scale development and psychometric validation. During the scale development process, an item pool was generated from the relevant literature, and content validity was established through expert evaluation. To examine the construct validity of the scale, an Exploratory Factor Analysis was performed on data from 640 academics in the first stage, and a Confirmatory Factor Analysis was conducted on data from 643 academics in the second stage. The scale’s reliability was evaluated using Cronbach’s alpha coefficients, and convergent and discriminant validity were assessed using composite reliability (CR), average variance extracted (AVE), and the Fornell–Larcker criterion. The findings demonstrate that the political silence scale developed in this study is a valid and reliable measurement instrument comprising four subdimensions: protest-based, perceived risk-based, conformity-based, and value-based political silence.

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