Adaptation of the Attitude and Behavior Scale of Carbon Offsetting to Turkish

Carbon offsetting has become a popular tool in global efforts to combat climate change. These programs allow regulated polluters to increase their emissions in exchange for supporting equivalent emission reductions in unregulated markets. This study aims to adapt the Carbon Offsetting Attitudes and Behaviors Scale, developed by Denton et al. (2020), into Turkish. The scale consists of 28 items and 7 sub-dimensions. The sub-dimensions are defined as follows in the original: "Attitudes Towards Carbon Offsetting" with 4 items, "Subjective Norm" with 3 items, "Perceived Behavioral Control" with 3 items, "Behavioral Intention" with 6 items, "Subjective Knowledge" with 3 items, "Trust in Airline Companies" with 3 items, and "Perceived Credibility of Climate Science" with 6 items. The sample of the study consists of 331 individuals who travel by air at least three times a year. To ensure language validity, the correlation between scores obtained from the Turkish and English scales was found to be r=0.996, indicating a highly significant relationship and confirming language validity. To determine the item discrimination power, item-total correlation values were calculated, and the significance of the differences between the upper 27% and lower 27% groups' item averages was analyzed using the t-test. The corrected item-total score correlations ranged from 0.507 to 0.775. Additionally, t-test values for the 27% upper and lower groups ranged from 4.567 to 9.521, with all t-values being significant at the 0.05 statistical significance level. The Content Validity Index (CVI) for each item was greater than 0, indicating content validity, and no items were eliminated. In the pilot study, the Cronbach's Alpha value for a sample of 50 was 0.811. Following this positive result, the general survey was conducted. To determine construct validity, an Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA) was first applied, yielding a seven-factor structure that explained 73.82% of the total variance. The reliability criteria for all dimensions and the overall survey, as measured by Cronbach's Alpha (CA) values, were above 0.70 as expected. The fit of the item-factor structure obtained from the EFA was examined through Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA), and the seven-factor structure of the scale was confirmed to have good fit indices. To assess the reliability over time, the survey was re-administered to a randomly selected 100 participants from the sample group two weeks later. The correlation analysis of the total scores from both tests showed a highly significant positive relationship (r=0.976, p