Translating Tests with the International Test Commission's Guidelines: Keeping Validity in Mind

Abstract

Summary: Translation of psychological tests developed and normed in other countries appears to be a common practice in countries that, like Canada, recognize more than one official languages or have among their population considerable cultural groups whose mother tongue is not the official language. In such situations, rigorous assessment of the equivalence of the original and translated versions of the test is essential, in particular when translated test versions are scored using original test norms. This article, based upon a research project aimed toward establishment of double (for French and English Canadians) Canadian norms of the CPI-434 ( Gough, 1996 ), describes how the Guidelines for adapting tests, developed by the International Tests Commission, allow one to consider the process of equivalence assessment of a translated test as being similar in nature to the collection of construct validity evidence of a test. From this perspective, and in line with the Guidelines, a translation method focused on the judgmental assessment of conceptual and linguistic equivalence of translated tests is proposed and discussed.

Factor Structure of Scores from the Conners' Rating Scales–Revised Among Nepali Children

“…Because some procedures used in the development of the Revised Conners’ scales are associated with factor over-extraction (Zwick & Velicer, 1986), it was hypothesized that a reduced structure would be identified. As recommended by Jeanrie and Bertrand (1999), both statistical procedures and complementary systematic judgments were used to evaluate the appropriateness of the Conners’ items in a Nepali context.…”

A qualitative assessment of cross-cultural adaptation of intermediate measures for schizophrenia in multisite international studies

“…The researchers then met to discuss their findings of the main themes in the data and overall impressions of test adaptability. The raters used the ITC model (Van de Vivjer & Hambleton, 1996, Jeanrie and Bertrand, 1999) for adaptation in structuring the feedback, i.e. assessing whether the test items and subscales met criteria for content equivalence and conceptual equivalence.…”

“…The need for adaptation of instruments in cross-cultural studies is well documented (Van de Vijver and Hambleton, 1996, Nampijja et al, 2010, Jeanrie and Bertrand, 1999). In 1993 the International Test Commission (ITC) identified four domains in test translation; context, test development and adaptation, administration, and documentation/scoring (Van de Vijver and Hambleton, 1996).…”

“…In 1993 the International Test Commission (ITC) identified four domains in test translation; context, test development and adaptation, administration, and documentation/scoring (Van de Vijver and Hambleton, 1996). Jeanne and Bertrand (1999) expanded the ITC guidelines suggesting there should be 3 distinct considerations in test adaptation: linguistic equivalence (i.e., comparable words, verb tenses and idioms), content equivalence (i.e., appropriateness of the behaviors and symbols that are referred to in the original test items) and conceptual equivalence (i.e. the meaning of the concept carried by the items, such as whether the concept exists in the target group and the specific meaning of each item).…”

Translation and Cross-Cultural Adaptation of Assessment Instruments Used in Psychological Research With Children and Families

“…Some researchers use more than one team so that the teams can check, review and discuss the translations made. For example, Jeanrie and Bertand (1999) used a team of four translators to make independent translations of an American personality measure for English and French Canadian adults and then used a second team to judge the translations. Guillemin et al (1993) recommend a multidisciplinary review committee should be organized to evaluate the translation, along with the back-translations and the original.…”