Translation

Cross-cultural research presents special challenges. One of these is to translate survey items from one written language precisely to another language. Rogler (1999) addressed the issue of translating survey questionnaires and pointed out a number of examples from English to Spanish translations in which there are inherent methodological difficulties in meeting conventional requirements for standardization in paper-and-pencil survey instruments. Perneger, Leplège, and Etter (1999) identified similar issues in wording in a careful investigation of the effects of different strategies for translating two psychometric instruments into French. Nevertheless, they found that the slight differences in translations made little difference in the empirical outcomes of the instruments. St. Louis and Roberts (2010) showed that the POSHA-S can be translated accurately from English to French by showing that attitudes from Canada and Cameroon were quite discrepant regardless of whether or not the questionnaire was administered in English or French. At the same time, differences within each country were minimal when comparing English versus French results.