Developing and Validating Monosyllabic Speech Materials with Psychometric Homogeneity for Young Adult Turkish-Azeri Speakers in Iran and Compiling the Equivalent Word Lists

Background and Aim: For the Word Recognition Score (WRS) test, homogenous lists of words with similar difficulty levels are needed. This study aimed to develop and validate Turkish-Azeri monosyllabic words with phonetic balance and psychometric homogeneity for the WRS test in young adult Turkish-Azeri speakers in Iran and to compile four 25-item word lists. Methods: In this cross-sectional/comparative study, four lists of 25 monosyllabic words with phonetic balance were created by extracting common words from Turkish-Azeri dialects and assessing them in terms of ease of use, familiarity, and relevance. Then, the lists were tested on 40 young adult Azari speakers aged 18–25 years to determine the validity and reliability. Results: All four lists showed adequate face and content validity. Cronbach’s alpha and split-half values for all four lists were above 0.9, indicating acceptable internal consistency and reliability. Construct validity was confirmed the factor analysis with one-dimensional variance of 77.9%, 80.0%, 79.9%, and 88% for the word lists 1 to 4, respectively, and reported the single-factor solution of the index in all four lists. Also, test-retest reliability with a two-week interval with Pearson correlation coefficients of the lists were 0.94, 0.97, 0.97, and 0.96, respectively. Conclusion: The four developed Turkish-Azeri word lists have phonetic balance and psychometric homogeneity with a high level of validity and reliability, which makes them suitable for evaluating the recognition of monosyllabic words by young adults in hearing centers of Azeri cities in Iran. Keywords: Speech audiometry; speech discrimination test; Azeri; monosyllabic; validity and reliability; psychometric function