Developing and validating a scale to measure perceived trust in public institutions: An approach aligned with Türkiye’s administrative context

Abstract

Existing studies on citizen trust at the macro level often fail to capture the organizational and contextual dimensions of trust in public institutions. This study develops a multidimensional and context-sensitive scale tailored to Türkiye's centralized and multi-actor administrative system. Building on but moving beyond the widely cited Citizen Trust in Government Organizations scale, the present study introduces a 19-item scale, the Citizen Trust Perception Scale for Public Institutions, structured around competence, benevolence and integrity. The scale was tested on a heterogeneous sample including public employees, service users and citizens with varying levels of familiarity with the Ministry of Youth and Sports, thereby ensuring broader representativeness. The development process encompassed content validation, exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses, and reliability assessments. Results showed strong construct validity (e.g. Comparative Fit Index = .972, root mean square error of approximation = .068) and high internal consistency (α = .922–.956 across dimensions; overall α = .977). These findings confirm the scale as a robust and reliable tool for measuring institutional trust, capturing not only performance-based perceptions but also ethical and governance-related factors. Beyond Türkiye, the Citizen Trust Perception Scale for Public Institutions offers applicability to other centralized or hybrid governance systems, providing both theoretical depth and methodological advancement to the study of institutional trust.

Points for practitioners

The Citizen Trust Perception Scale for Public Institutions (CTPS-PI) offers a clear framework to assess citizens’ trust across competence, benevolence and integrity in Türkiye and comparable centralized or hybrid administrative systems.

The scale supports analysis of trust patterns across central and provincial units, enabling practitioners to identify vulnerabilities such as communication problems or perceptions of unfairness.

Its structured approach helps managers integrate trust considerations into performance management, service delivery and organizational improvement efforts.

Applying the scale in trust-building strategies can strengthen transparency, consistency and responsiveness in public administration.