City identity questionnaire: designing, validating and reliability testing

Introduction. One of the major problems in studying identity with the city is a shortage of research tools. The aim of this study was to create a modern questionnaire allowing to study relevant aspects of this phenomenon. Materials and methods. 156 respondents participated in the study. To measure the questionnaire construct validity, confirmatory factor analysis was applied. To verify its external validity, we used M. Kuhn and T. McPartland’s Who am I technique as a validation base. The statistical method applied was the Kruskal-Wallis rank analysis of variance. Checking the questionnaire reliability, including that of test-retest, was carried out on the sample of 50 subjects. Statistical methods involved descriptive statistics, analysis of variance, Cronbach's alpha coefficient analysis, principal component analysis (theta coefficients) and correlation analysis. Results. The understanding of phenomenon of identity with the city is defined as behavioral self-determination of a person in urban environment. In accordance with that «Tomsk questionnaire of identity with the city» was developed, consisting of 23 questions grouped in five scales, namely «Sense of belonging to the city and faith in its potential», «Emotional attachment and feeling of closeness», «Uniqueness of the city», «Personal contribution to the city life», «Future plans associated with the city». Conclusions. The results of statistical testing have proved validity and high reliability of the technique.