Urdu Translation and Psychometric Evaluation of Cognitive Flexibility Inventory for Adolescents

Cognitive Flexibility Inventory (CFI; Dennis & Vander Wal, 2010) is brief self-reporting instrument to measure an individual’s cognitive flexibility. Mental health challenges such as anxiety, depression, impulsivity, aggression and suicidal ideations have been associated with reduced cognitive flexibility. CFI is widely used 20-item self-administered measure with 7-point Likert type scale. Despite growing work on Adolescent’s mental health, there is scarcity of tool specifically designed for Urdu speaking population. Current study aims to translate Cognitive Flexibility Inventory in Urdu Language and establish its psychometric properties among Pakistani Adolescents. Berlin’s (1970) Forward-Backward translation and expert panel review procedure was used to create Urdu translated version of CFI. Bilingual subsample (n=40) was used to establish cross-language validity. Over period of 2 weeks, test re-test reliability was excellent (r= .90). Present research recruited the sample of 300 Adolescents for Phase II (Age= 13-19 years, M=16.72, S.D.=1.69) from private & Public Sector Educational Institutes of Islamabad & Rawalpindi. Confirmatory factor analysis supported original factors of scales and produced acceptable fit indices. (χ²/df = 1.54, CFI=.97, RMSEA= 0.04, SRMR= 0.03). Results showed excellent internal consistency (Cronbach’s Alpha= .93). Hence, findings indicate that CFI (Urdu translated version) is significantly reliable and valid tool for assessing cognitive flexibility among Urdu speaking Adolescents. It has strong clinical implications for assessment-based research in Pakistan.