The document discusses the importance of validating research questionnaires through establishing reliability and validity. It outlines the key steps in translating and adapting questionnaires for other cultures, including forward translation, expert reviews, back translation, pilot testing, and confirming psychometric properties. Validity is subdivided into content, construct, criterion, and other types that should be assessed through both qualitative and quantitative methods. Reliability can be evaluated through measures like internal consistency, test-retest reliability and more. The document emphasizes the need to carefully validate any adapted questionnaires to ensure cross-cultural relevance and accurate measurement.

1. At a glance: Translation, Cultural
Adaptation and Psychometric
Properties of Research Measures.
Dr. Naglaa Fathy Youssef, PhD, MSN, RN
Ph.D. University of Stirling, UK
Associate professor
Medical-Surgical Nursing dep.
Faculty of Nursing – Cairo University
Dec.2020
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2. Objectives
1. Recognize the characteristics of good
questionnaires.
2. Explain the concept of reliability vs. validity.
3. Discuss why reliability and validity concepts are
worth exploring before starting the research.
4. Illustrate the steps of translation, cross-cultural
adaptations and psychometric properties.
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3. Introduction
Questionnaire is a set of
standardized questions, often
called items, which follow a fixed
scheme in order to collect
individual data about one or more
specific topics.
3 Source: Lavrakas, P. J. (2008).

4. Bad vs. Good Questionnaire
4
A bad
questionnaire
Uninterpretable
results
Inaccurate
answer and
conclusions

5. “art” of constructing survey questionnaires
Source: Synodinos, N. E. (2003).5

6. 6
concise
Clear
Valid
ReliableSuccinct
Interesting
Readability
Characteristics of
a well designed
questionnaire

7. Practicality
• Practical concerns during selecting the questionnaire:
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Time Cost Ease of Administration
Format Interpretation

8. Types of questionnaires based on distribution
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Interview
methods
Face to face
Telephone
Self-administered
E-mail
Mail = postal
Internet

9. Step by step guide to select
Questionnaire
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Determine your
research aims.
Choose instruments to
reach your research
aims
Access information about
possible instruments to
identify the most
appropriate
questionnaire to be used.
Examine validity,
reliability, cross-
cultural fairness, and
practicality.

10. How to search databases to find
Questionnaire
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12. Psychometrics
• Psychometrics is usually
concerned with measuring
individual’s: knowledge, ability,
personality, and types of behaviors.
Ginty, 2013
12
Questionnaires must be
evaluated extensively to be
able to say it has excellent
psychometric properties,
meaning a scale is both valid
and reliable.

13. Validity Vs. reliability
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14. 14
Types of
validity
Content
validity
Face
Content
Construct
validity
Convergent
Discriminant
Criterion
validity
Concurrent
Predictive
How to assess
validity?

15. Methods of assessing validity
Face validity and content validity are two forms of
validity that are usually assessed qualitatively by
expert.
Face validity (‘surface validity’)
– Check the face value of the information, and
not its reliability or accuracy.
– superficial method of measuring validity.
Content validity
– Check if the questionnaire contains questions
which cover all aspects of the concept.
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16. Construct Validity
It refers to the extent to which the questionnaire
measures the theoretical construct that was designed
to measure.
Types of construct validity:
– Convergence validity.
– Discrimination validity.
– Factor analysis
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17. • It is a type of validity that is used to measure the ability of an
instrument to determine current or predict future outcomes criteria.
Types:
– Concurrent Validity – is used when the two instruments are
concurrently administered to measure the same event at the same
time under the same condition.
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Anxiety scale A
Administer
both scales
at the
same time
Compare
both scales
results
Anxiety scale B
Concurrent validity
Same score
Criterion validity

18. 18
Administer instrument
Observe future
performance or
potential score.
Predictive validity
Time-1 Time interval
Allow time to pass
Predictive Validity
Predictive validity aims to predict future performance or
potential, like ability to succeed in college, risk of developing
illness or pressure ulcer. For example Braden scale of predicting
pressure ulcer, SAT exam.

19. Reliability
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20. Four types of reliability
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Inter-rater Reliability
Test-retest Reliability
Parallel-forms
Reliability
Internal consistency
Reliability
Attribute 1
Domain 1
Attribute 2
Domain 2
Attribute 3
Domain 3
Time-1 Time-2
Interviewer-1 Interviewer-2
Form A Form B
Cronbach’s
alpha

21. Translation and culture adaption of
Questionnaires
• Translation of previously
developed questionnaires has
often been the choice when
addressing research to groups
whose language is different.
• Translation quality is a
methodological issue that
researcher need to take
seriously.
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22. • In the translation of questionnaires, it is
highly important to assure congruency
between the words and their true meaning
in the language to which the questionnaire
is translated.
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23. Questionnaire translation
It is highly recommended to follow these steps:
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Forward
translation
Qualitative
reviews
Back
translation
Panels reviewPiloting

24. Psychometric properties
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28. Youssef, et al. 2019
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29. ❖ For good research and clinical practice it is important that
patients/people are able to understand the questionnaire.
So that the questionnaire is capable of capturing relevant
data to give valid conclusion.
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One message summarizes the story.

30. References
• Lavrakas, P. J. (2008). Encyclopedia of survey research methods (Vols. 1-0). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage
Publications, Inc. doi: 10.4135/9781412963947
• Synodinos, N. E. (2003). The “art” of questionnaire construction: some important considerations for
manufacturing studies. Integrated manufacturing systems.
• Use questionnaires effectively | Emerald Publishing (emeraldgrouppublishing.com)
• Jenn N. C. (2006). Designing A Questionnaire. Malaysian family physician : the official journal of the Academy
of Family Physicians of Malaysia, 1(1), 32–35.
• Rattray, J., & Jones, M. C. (2007). Essential elements of questionnaire design and development. Journal of
clinical nursing, 16(2), 234-243.
• Tsang, S., Royse, C. F., & Terkawi, A. S. (2017). Guidelines for developing, translating, and validating a
questionnaire in perioperative and pain medicine. Saudi journal of anaesthesia, 11(Suppl 1), S80–S89.
• Ginty A.T. (2013) Psychometric Properties. In: Gellman M.D., Turner J.R. (eds) Encyclopedia of Behavioral
Medicine. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4419-1005-9_480
• Kalfoss, M. (2019). Translation and adaption of questionnaires: a nursing challenge. SAGE Open Nursing, 5,
2377960818816810.
• Guillemin F, Bombardier C, Beaton D (1993) Cross-cultural adaptation of health-related quality of life
measures: Literature review and proposed guidelines. Journal of Clinical Epidemiology. 46: 1417-1432
• Williams, A. (2003). How to… Write and analyse a questionnaire. Journal of orthodontics, 30(3), 245-252.
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