Determining the Appropriateness of the “What If” Situations Test (WIST) with Turkish Pre-Schoolers

Measurement instruments are needed to assess the child’s sexual abuse prevention program. The purpose of the study was to determine the reliability and validity of the WIST (What If Situations Test) for Turkish culture. Participants were children of the 3–6 age group attending pre-school education institutions and the sample size was identified by means of a power analysis. Seventy children were identified as the sample with 0.85 power and 0.05 type I error according to the power analysis. Language validity, content validity, internal validity coefficient (Cronbach alpha coefficient), and test–retest analyses were conducted in terms of validity and reliability in the scope of efforts for adaptation to Turkish culture. Firstly, Kendall W = 0.83 was the score for the expert opinions concerning the content validity of the language validity scale. It was found that the Cronbach alpha coefficients were between 0.68 and 0.90 for the scale sub-dimensions of appropriate and inappropriate recognition, saying, doing, telling, and reporting. The test–retest reliability of the scale was found to be r = 0.89 and the test–retest reliabilities for the sub-dimensions (appropriate recognition, inappropriate recognition, say skills, do skills, tell skills, and reporting skills) were between r = 0.48 and r = 0.92. The test–retest reliability for the Personal Safety Questionnaire (PSQ), as having complimentary items to the WIST, was found to be r = 0.82. The reliability and validity analysis of the ‘What If’ Situations Test (WIST), used to evaluate pre-schoolers’ skills regarding self-protection against sexual abuse, showed that the Test’s adaptation to Turkish culture was reliable and valid.     

Remittances and Calorie Consumption Nexus in Algeria

This study investigates the cointegration and causal relationships between remittances and calorie consumption as an indicator of food security in Algeria. We estimate the calorie demand function for the period 1970‐2008, using two different cointegration tests Johansen and Juselius ( 1990 ) and autoregressive distributed lag (ARDL) bounds testing approach proposed by Pesaran et al. ( 2001 ) and Granger causality test based on Vector Error Correction Model. We find that: (1) GDP per capita affects calorie consumption positively and significantly; (2) income elasticity of calorie consumption is 0.16 in the short run and 0.60 in the long run; (3) remittances positively and significantly influence calorie consumption in the long run; (4) remittance elasticity of calorie consumption is 0.05 in the long run; (5) based on the causality test remittances influence calorie consumption directly and indirectly via GDP per capita in the long run.