Abstract

The purpose of the present study is to compare the effectiveness of three types of practice in enhancing the validity and equivalency of test instruments when cross-cultural adaptation of attitude measures is necessary. The three types of practice are: (1) translation and review; (2) translation, back translation, and review; (3) translation, back translation, review, and empirical validation study. Seven hundred and thirty four 5th graders from three public elementary schools in Seoul, Korea participated in this study. Reponses on the three test versions and two other motivation scales were collected within a 3-week period with approximately one-week intervals. Overall results show that the validation version is most superior in all aspects. Furthermore, back translation version is superior to the translation version in terms of its similarity to the validation version and construct-related evidence. Results from IRT analysis reveal that the item qualities of the validation version is superior to the other two versions. Discussions are provided in terms of the nature of the adapted attitude scales.