Introduction to Cultural Adaptations and Validation of Measurement Instruments

Most of the research and practice within the various applied fields of psychology depend greatly on pre-validated and standardized measurement instruments. These instruments provide a framework for administering and interpreting the scores upon which the psychological evaluations and conclusions are made. Most of these measurement instruments are developed in the Western cultural context, particularly in North America and Europe, either on a proprietary basis—manualized and published by corporate publishers—or as publications in journals or edited books. Although these instruments are available for use only after a thorough peer review and psychometric scrutiny for their validity, empirical evaluations of the cross-cultural equivalence of these measures are often ignored. Although organizations such as the International Test Commission (ITC) and American Psychological Association (APA) have laid down guidelines to be followed while using measures across different cultural contexts, the practice of empirical cultural validation—translation, adaptation, and validation in the local culture—has not been fully achieved, especially in research involving sample from non-Western cultural contexts. Given the wide gap in cultural values and practices between Western and non-Western cultural contexts, there is a need for cross-cultural validation of measurement instruments in couple and family relationships for use in India. This chapter presents an overview of the need for the empirical validation of instruments in the cultural context and the conceptual, methodological, and analytical issues involved in cross-cultural test adaptation and validation.