Appraising item equivalence across multiple languages and cultures

Abstract

Activity in the area of language testing is expanding beyond second language acquisition. In many contexts, tests that measure language skills are being translated into several different languages so that parallel versions exist for use in multilingual contexts. To ensure that translated items are equivalent to their original versions, both statistical and qualitative analyses are necessary. In this article, we describe a statistical method for evaluating the translation equivalence of test items that are scored dichotomously. We provide an illustration of the method to a portion of the verbal subtest of the Psychometric Entrance Test, which is a large-scale postsecondary admissions test used in Israel. By evaluating translated items statistically, language test-developers can ensure the comparability of tests across languages and they can identify the types of problems that should be avoided in future translation efforts.