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.