A procedure to prevent differences in translated survey items using SQP

Abstract

Survey translation has developed best practice procedures to translate survey instruments aiming that the same stimuli and measurement properties should be provided. However, it is very difficult to check in a systematic way these requirements. Current procedures in translation assessment do not link the quality of the translation with a formal test of measurement equivalence. In addition, monitoring the formal structure of translated questionnaires in cross-sectional surveys is challenging. This paper presents a procedure to prevent differences in the form of translated survey instruments using Survey Quality Prediction program (SQP). SQP asks users to code a large set of properties of a survey item. Deviations in translations are detected by comparing the codes of a source questionnaire and targeted languages. The paper summarizes the findings of this procedure implemented in a set of items in the Round 5 of the European Social Survey (ESS).