Developing and validating a questionnaire on young learners’ multilingualism and multilingual identity

Abstract

Validation of data collection instruments is a necessary step in all research and should be regarded as an integral component in every stage of the research process; however, the validation process is often not accounted for in detail in published studies. The purpose of this paper is to describe the development and validation of the Ungspråk electronic questionnaire, which was designed to explore teenagers' multilingualism and multilingual identity in the Norwegian school context. It aims to examine whether having a multilingual identity correlates with several variables such as language practices, languages studied in school, open-mindedness, and beliefs about multilingualism. To our knowledge, the Ungspråk questionnaire is one of the first validated tools for quantitatively investigating learners' multilingual identity in school settings. Different qualitative and quantitative procedures were adopted for validating Ungspråk, including piloting sessions with students from two lower secondary schools. The results of the validation processes suggest that the Ungspråk questionnaire is a robust instrument for investigating young learners' multilingual identity. It is easy to use, acceptable to learners, and fulfils stringent criteria of reliability and validity.

The link between multilingualism, language learning and open-mindedness in secondary school students in Norway

“…To answer our research question, we developed the Ungspråk questionnaire (see Haukås et al, 2021a, for a detailed account of the development and validation of the questionnaire).…”

“…Thus, differences between people cannot be reduced to ethnic or national distinctions. Cronbach's alpha for the construct 'open-mindedness', reported by Haukås et al (2021a) when piloting the questionnaire, was 0.75. The Cronbach's alpha test run with the dataset of the current study was 0.79, which proved the validity of the Ungspråk questionnaire.…”

“…The research project, including the questionnaire, was submitted for ethical assessment to the Norwegian Centre for Research Data (NSD). After approval was received, the questionnaire was piloted twice to verify its validity (for details, see Haukås et al, 2021a).…”

“…To explore this connection, we study students' openmindedness, a psychological quality which, in intercultural psychology research, is often associated with a person's predisposition to develop open and unprejudiced attitudes towards differences (van der Zee & Oudenhoven, 2000). Drawing on the quantitative data collected with the Ungspråk questionnaire (Haukås et al, 2021a), we look at the possible links between open-mindedness and a number of relevant factors in students who study one (English) or two foreign languages (English plus Spanish, German or French) in Norwegian lower secondary schools. Specifically, we explore how students' open-mindedness is connected to learning a second foreign language at school, their self-identification as multilingual, and other factors such as having friends with home languages other than Norwegian, their migration backgrounds and their experience living abroad.…”

“…The paper continues by clarifying some key theoretical concepts and proceeds with an overview of research studies on open-mindedness in foreign language learning research, applied linguistics and intercultural psychology. We then present our research questions and introduce our research instrument, the Ungspråk questionnaire (Haukås et al, 2021a) Open-mindedness. The Cambridge dictionary (McIntosh, 2013) relates openmindedness to a person's receptiveness to new ideas and defines it as "the quality of being willing to consider ideas and opinions that are new or different to your own".…”