The Validity and Reliability Testing of a Consumer-Based Cultural Competency Inventory

Abstract

A statewide data collection effort was implemented to assess the validity and reliability of a 52-item consumer assessment instrument of the cultural competency mental health providers. Following a 2-year, community-driven instrument development process, a consumer assessment tool was administered to 238 African American, Latino, and Vietnamese American mental health consumers across the state of Maryland. A subsequent principal components analysis indicated that 44 of the 52 items loaded on one of four factors, which accounted for 52% of the variance in the principal components analysis. It was also found that the overall instrument had a Cronbach's alpha of .92. The authors conclude that although these findings suggest this scale has good psychometric properties and can be used as a clinical tool in the assessment of the cultural competency of mental health providers, more work is needed to finetune the scale.

Client and Practitioner Perspectives on Multicultural Counseling Competence

“…After testing the psychometric properties of the scale, the authors acknowledged that "more work is needed to fine tune the scale" (Cornelius et al, 2004, p. 201). Limitations of the scale mentioned by the authors include its length-which they believe could be shortened-and the small sample size of clients of Asian American and Native American descent included in their study (Cornelius et al, 2004).…”

“…Fuertes et al, 2001;Pope-Davis et al, 2001). In this vein, recent attempts have been made by some researchers to incorporate client perceptions of multicultural competence into assessment of practitioner's abilities in this area (Cornelius, Booker, Arthur, Reeves, & Morgan, 2004;Davis, 2007). Though no psychometrically sound client measures are currently available, there are instruments-in-progress and unvalidated instruments being used in some settings.…”

“…The authors claim that they have established good content and construct validity, as well as good reliability (Cornelius et al, 2004); their statements regarding content validity are reasonable, but the construct validity and reliability of the scale are (Cornelius et al, 2004). Principal components analysis (PCA) performed on the CCI indicated that the scale likely measures four components (Cornelius et al, 2004), with the majority of the items written in the eight areas loading significantly on one of these four components.…”

“…Principal components analysis (PCA) performed on the CCI indicated that the scale likely measures four components (Cornelius et al, 2004), with the majority of the items written in the eight areas loading significantly on one of these four components. Items from the eight scales are divided between the components, however, without a clear pattern.…”

“…The Maryland Mental Hygiene Administration/Maryland Health Partners (MMH/MHP) was unable to find a validated, reliable, normed measure to assess client perceptions of multicultural counseling competence, so they developed a consumer assessment tool for measuring cultural competence (Arthur et al, 2005). The result of this effort, the Cultural Competency Inventory (CCI; Cornelius et al, 2004), is a 52-item, dichotomous consumer feedback instrument measuring the cultural competence of mental health providers. After testing the psychometric properties of the scale, the authors acknowledged that "more work is needed to fine tune the scale" (Cornelius et al, 2004, p. 201).…”