Translating Questionnaire Items for a Multi-Lingual Worker Population: The Iterative Process of Translation and Cognitive Interviews with English-, Spanish-, and Chinese-Speaking Workers

Details

• Personal Author:
  Baron, Sherry L. ; DeLaney S ; Eggerth DE ; Flynn M ; Fujishiro K ; Gong F ; Jacobson CJ Jr.
• Description:
  Background: The increasing ethnic diversity of the US workforce has created a need for research tools that can be used with multi-lingual worker populations. Developing multi-language questionnaire items is a complex process; however, very little has been documented in the literature. Methods: Commonly used English items from the Job Content Questionnaire and Quality of Work Life Questionnaire were translated by two interdisciplinary bilingual teams and cognitively tested in interviews with English-, Spanish-, and Chinese-speaking workers. Results: Common problems across languages mainly concerned response format. Language-specific problems required more conceptual than literal translations. Some items were better understood by non-English speakers than by English speakers. De-centering (i.e., modifying the English original to correspond with translation) produced better understanding for one item. Conclusions: Translating questionnaire items and achieving equivalence across languages require various kinds of expertise. Backward translation itself is not sufficient. More research efforts should be concentrated on qualitative approaches to developing useful research tools. [Description provided by NIOSH]
• Subjects:
  Occupational Health Safety Surveys And Questionnaires Workplace
• Keywords:
  Author Keywords: Immigrant Workers Cognitive Interview Homecare Qualitative Analysis Questionnaire Development Questionnaires Translation Work-environment Work-organization
• ISSN:
  0271-3586
• Document Type:
  Text
• Genre:
  Journal Article
• Place as Subject:
  Ohio ; OSHA Region 5
• CIO:
  National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH)
• Division:
  DSHEFS - Division of Surveillance, Hazard Evaluations, and Field Studies ; EID - Education and Information Division
• Topic:
  Workplace Safety & Health
• Location:
  North America
• Pages in Document:
  194-203
• Volume:
  53
• Issue:
  2
• NIOSHTIC Number:
  nn:20036340
• Citation:
  Am J Ind Med 2010 Feb; 53(2):194-203
• Contact Point Address:
  Kaori Fujishiro, Division of Surveillance, Hazard Evaluation, and Field Studies (DSHEFS), National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH), 4676 Columbia Parkway (R-17), Cincinnati, OH 45226
• Email:
  kfujishiro@cdc.gov
• Federal Fiscal Year:
  2010
• NORA Priority Area:
  Manufacturing ; Construction
• Peer Reviewed:
  True
• Source Full Name:
  American Journal of Industrial Medicine
• Collection(s):
  National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health
• Main Document Checksum:
  urn:sha-512:eb552939ce3f056b25ddfbe296c6856c248bc2a7047d019d1b622bafa02249f53c9bf63ad7cc8039515dec0dbe757c058e20541567e50a6368d53c97a41b805a
• Download URL:
  https://stacks.cdc.gov/view/cdc/187808/cdc_187808_DS1.pdf
• File Type:
  [PDF - 202.73 KB ]