Track 1-5
Research

Translation Issues in Cross-Cultural Research: Producing Culturally Appropriate Survey Instruments

Collecting accurate health data on the growing number of ethnic minorities in the United States has increased in policy relevance in recent years. Today, most general-population sample surveys, require translation into at least one language (usually Spanish), and often other languages as well. Cross-cultural research is threatened by the failure to produce culturally and linguistically appropriate survey instruments for minority populations. A survey conducted with an inadequate instrument may lead to erroneous conclusions that are difficult to detect during analyses. Conclusions drawn from such research may be mistakenly attributed to differences between the source and target populations. These risks, and the increasing importance of cross-cultural research, have led to a reexamination of translation techniques as well as other techniques for producing survey instruments that are appropriate for this type of research. Adept translation of a survey instrument is an integral part of the instrument-development process, but it alone does not ensure that a culturally appropriate survey instrument will result. Producing a survey instrument that is culturally appropriate for Latinos in the United States may require modifying the English versions of instruments, as well as subjecting the Spanish-language instruments to more rigorous testing. That testing must include determining the reading level of survey instruments in Spanish, conducting cognitive interviews that evaluate the appropriateness of the survey content as well as the cognitive task required in the survey instrument, and pre-testing the survey instrument to ensure that the survey measures perform equally well in Spanish and English. This presentation reviews the major issues associated with producing culturally appropriate survey instruments and the prevalent techniques for translating and assessing the quality of survey instruments for cross-cultural research.

Beverly Weidmer Ocampo, MASurvey Analyst., RAND Corporation
1700 Main St.
Santa Monica, CA 90401
Phone: (310) 393-0411, ext. 6788
Fax: (310) 451-6921
Beverly_Weidmer@rand.org
www.rand.org

Beverly Weidmer is an Associate Survey Analyst in the Survey Research Group and has been at RAND since 1991. She has a BA in Political Science and an MA in Latin American Studies both from the University of Texas at Austin. Ms. Weidmer brings extensive experience in both quantitative and qualitative survey research methodology and has managed numerous surveys and qualitative data collection projects at RAND.

Ms. Weidmer is experienced in instrument design and translation, survey management and conducting multi-mode surveys. She has extensive experience in conducting cross-cultural research both in the U.S. and abroad. She has worked on projects focusing on immigrant and minority populations in the U.S., Latino health, and barriers to access in health care services. She is currently coordinating a national survey of new immigrants to the US., managed a survey of Salvadoran and Filipino immigrants, a child immunization survey of African American and Latino populations in inner city Los Angeles, and conducted an ethnographic study of Mexican migrants to LA County. Ms. Weidmer also brings considerable experience in international data collection projects. She coordinated a large scale maternal and infant health survey in 60 rural communities throughout Guatemala, helped to set up the second wave of the Indonesian Family Life Survey, consulted with the University of Chicago on a survey of farmers in Thailand, consulted with the World Bank and the Vietnamese Ministry of Health on a national health survey, and coordinated a household, health provider and facility survey in the Former Yugoslavian Republic of Macedonia. In addition, Ms. Weidmer was reared in a bicultural environment, is fully bilingual in Spanish and English, has fluency in French, has lived overseas and has traveled extensively.  NEXT >

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