Translation and Adaptation of Psychological Tests

Stefania Ægisdóttir & Lawrence H. Gerstein & James W. Bartee

The translation and adaptation of psychological tests used for practice and research requires careful attention to issues of bias and equivalence. Thorough translation methods help reduce bias and enhance equivalence of multilingual versions of a test. Of equal importance is statistical verification of equivalence. Equivalence addresses the question of comparability of observations and test scores across cultures. Lonner described four types: functional, conceptual, metric, and linguistic equivalence. These refer to issues of comparability of behavior and concepts across cultures to issues of test item characteristics (form, meaning structure). Van de Vijver also discussed four types of equivalence. Construct noneqaiw -alence refers to constructs being so dissimilar across cultures they cannot be compared. Construct equivalence occurs when a scale measures the same underlying construct and nomological network across cultural groups, but may not be defined the same way. With measurement unit equivalence, the measurement scales for the instruments are equivalent (e.g., ...

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