RELIABILITY AND VALIDATION OF THE MALAY VERSION OF THE GENDER EQUITABLE MEN SCALE QUESTIONNAIRE

Received 2022-10-17; Accepted 2022-08-25; Published 2024-01-02

Abstract

Gender role beliefs refer to individuals’ belief that men and women should shoulder their role-related behaviour. Evidence showed that patriarchal gender roles are directly associated with violence perpetration. Gender roles can be measured with the GEMS questionnaire, which was developed in English. Thus, it needs to be adapted to the local language to be used in a family violence study among married men in Sarawak, Malaysia. This study aims to translate and validate the original English version of the GEMS into the Malay language. The English version was translated forward and backward into Malay, followed by content validation by six public health and language experts. The scale was further tested for face validity among 30 people from the general population, followed by a
cross-sectional study involving 200 male respondents. The item-level content validity index (I-CVI) ranges from 0.83 to 1. Exploratory factor analysis resulted in three components within the scale, and confirmatory factor analysis established convergent and discriminant validity. The overall Cronbach’s alpha ranged from 0.778 to 0.921. In conclusion, the Malay version of the GEMS is a valid and reliable tool for measuring gender equitability among men in Sibu, Sarawak.