Volume 1 
August 1999 
Issue #1

Increasing the Validity of Adapted Tests: Myths to be Avoided and Guidelines for Improving Test Adaptation Practices, Ronald K. Hambleton and Liane Patsula, University of Massachusetts at Amherst, August 1999

Abstract

Adapting or translating achievement, aptitude, and personality tests and questionnaires from one language and culture to others has been done for a long time. Unfortunately, there is substantial evidence to suggest that often these adapted tests are problematic because of a failure to do the test adaptation work correctly. The purposes of this paper are to describe five myths about test adaptation that need to be discarded and to offer a set of steps to follow in test adaptation projects. The International Test Commission guidelines for adapting tests are also presented in the paper.