A SCALE DEVELOPMENT STUDY TO EVALUATE THE PHYSICAL COMFORT OF DENIM JEANS

In this study, a scale was developed in order to evaluate the physical comfort of denim jeans. During the scale development process, young people were interviewed about the problems they experience regarding the denim jeans they wear in their daily lives, the previous studies on garment comfort were reviewed and also experts working in the ready-to-wear industry were interviewed. As a result, a 19-item scale was developed to evaluate the physical comfort of denim jeans based on the information obtained from the previous studies and the people interviewed. Cronbach s Alpha (α) reliability coefficient was found 0.91 for the whole scale during the internal consistency test. Experts views, taken for the definition of items in the scale to evaluate the physical comfort of denim jeans, were considered to be adequate and valid for the content and the reliability of the scale. As a result of the factor analysis to test the construct validity of the scale, it was found that factor loading was quite high and the items in the scale were gathered under four factors. According to the obtained findings, it was discovered that, the scale is a valid and a reliable tool, which can be used to measure and evaluate the problems of physical comfort which denim jeans users experience.