Translation of Assessment Instruments

Current research examining cross-cultural equivalence of assessment tools primarily focuses on college students and young adults. Little research in this area has been done on Vietnamese older adults. Brislin and colleagues (1973) suggest a translation protocol to lessen discrepancies in translating assessment tools. This process includes translating the instrument from English to the target language, and then the document would be translated back into English by another person. Discrepancies between the original English version and the back-translation version are resolved by consensus and clarification to produce conceptual equivalence. The caveat is that even under ideal circumstances, a translated/back translated instrument may not be able to assess concepts that have no conceptual equivalence or are culturally bound concepts (Dunnigan, McNall, Mortimer, 1993).