A preferred approach for the cognitive testing of translated materials: testing the source version as a basis for comparison

Goerman, Patricia; Caspar, Rachel

doi:10.1080/13645570903251516

Cited by 15 publications

(15 citation statements)

References 1 publication

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“…We interviewed twenty-three Spanish-speaking respondents and five English speakers in each of two rounds of testing. Testing of the questions with a small number of English-speakers was included to help assess whether the issues discovered in Spanish were due to translation problems or conceptual difficulties with the original English wording (see Goerman & Caspar, 2010;Schoua-Glusberg & Villar, 2014). A better method would have been parallel testing and revisions to the English and Spanish versions, including testing with non-native English speakers educated outside of the U.S.…”

Section: Methodology and Respondent Characteristicsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Translation of country-specific programs and survey error: Measuring the education level of immigrants

Goerman¹,

Fernández²,

Quiroz³

2018

Trans-Int

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The difficulty of translating country-specific programs for use in surveys has been well documented. Questions about educational attainment offer a good illustration of this difficulty, particularly amongst Spanish-speaking immigrants in the United States, who come from a variety of countries where education systems are different in both name and structure. This article presents results from cognitive testing of Spanish education-level questions in the U.S. Census Bureau's American Community Survey. We conducted two iterative rounds of testing with 46 Spanish-speaking respondents from 11 different countries. Respondents had differing interpretations of the Census Bureau's education-level categories because they differed, either in meaning or by the terms used, from the categories in their countries of origin. For example, Mexican-origin respondents interpreted 'escuela secundaria,' or 'high school,' to correspond to nine years of schooling, while in the U.S. completing high school corresponds to 12 years of schooling. This type of misinterpretation could result in upward biases in reports of educational levels. We discuss various approaches tested to deal with this type of response error.

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Section: Methodology and Respondent Characteristicsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Translation of country-specific programs and survey error: Measuring the education level of immigrants

Goerman¹,

Fernández²,

Quiroz³

2018

Trans-Int

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“…Harkness (2003) has proposed a comprehensive model called TRAPD -Translation, Review, Adjudication, Pretesting, and Documentation -to be implemented in the survey translation lifecycle. Behr and Shishido (2016) and Harkness (2010) have advocated that survey questionnaires and materials should be produced by a team of language, survey, and subject matter experts to cover both linguistic and measurement perspectives (also see Goerman et al, 2010aGoerman et al, , 2010bSha & Pan, 2013 on empirical assessment).…”

Section: Literature Review and Backgroundmentioning

confidence: 99%

Translation and visual cues: Towards creating a road map for limited English speakers to access translated Internet surveys in the United States

2018

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This study seeks to provide a starting point in the survey translation and user experience literatures about facilitating entry to online survey questionnaires among limited English speakers in the United States. We present results from an assessment of prototype materials with limited English speakers: prenotification materials, survey entry pages, and informational web pages. We found that combining translation with common website functionality visual cues (tabs, hyperlinks, drop-down menus, and URLs) can help limited English-speaking individuals improve their experience using and accessing entry pages and informational web pages for government surveys. We also provide recommendations for continued research to develop translations and visual cues that are visible, clear, and linguistically and culturally appropriate. The ultimate goal is increased inclusion and accessability for hard-to-reach populations in online Federal surveys in the United States.

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“…This understanding may in turn facilitate the transfer of knowledge between the parallel developments of the multi-lingual versions of the instrument. Therefore, involving bilinguals allows for the direct comparability of semantic equivalence, which otherwise would not have been possible (Goerman, & Caspar, 2010). The interview process and resulting analysis and discussion thus facilitates a skill building element for the research team who, whilst not fluent in all adaptation languages, nevertheless glean fuller insight into the translation issues and difficulties particular to certain items in certain languages.…”

Section: The Involvement Of Bilingualsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Although there is great advantage to including monolinguals, such as their in depth understanding and familiarity with the target culture, there are methodological challenges that could be associated with this approach. After implementing CI with monolinguals regarding the Spanish translation of their survey, Goerman and Caspar (2010) found that they were still unable to evaluate the equivalence between the English and Spanish versions. As a follow up to this study, they tested both Spanish and English versions simultaneously using CI and found that they were better able to examine the questions across languages.…”

Section: Cognitive Interviewing Techniques and Their Role In Survey Amentioning

confidence: 99%

Using Cognitive Interviewing for the Semantic Enhancement of Multilingual Versions of Personality Questionnaires

Daouk

McDowall

2013

Journal of Personality Assessment

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We discuss the use of cognitive interviewing with bilinguals as an integral part of crosscultural adaptation of personality questionnaires. The aim is to maximize semantic equivalence to increase the likelihood of items maintaining the intended structure and meaning in the target language. We refer to this part of adaptation as semantic enhancement, and integrate cognitive interviewing within it as a tool for scrutinizing translations, the connotative meaning, and the psychological impact of items across languages. During the adaptation of a work-based personality questionnaire from English to Arabic, Chinese (Mandarin), and Spanish, we cognitively interviewed 12 bilingual participants about 136 items in different languages (17% of all items), of which 67 were changed. A content analysis categorizing the reasons for amending items elicited eleven errors that affect two identified forms of semantic equivalence. We provide the resultant coding scheme as a framework for designing cognitive interviewing protocols and propose a procedure for implementing them. We discuss implications for theory and practice.

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A preferred approach for the cognitive testing of translated materials: testing the source version as a basis for comparison

Cited by 15 publications

References 1 publication

Translation of country-specific programs and survey error: Measuring the education level of immigrants

Translation of country-specific programs and survey error: Measuring the education level of immigrants

Translation and visual cues: Towards creating a road map for limited English speakers to access translated Internet surveys in the United States

Using Cognitive Interviewing for the Semantic Enhancement of Multilingual Versions of Personality Questionnaires

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