The Application of Testing ACROSS CULTURES

On this topic will be discussing on the problems associated with using psychological tests with
minority individuals and those of another culture

In the 1970s, black psychologists demanded an immediate moratorium on all testing of black
persons , with the assumption that most, if not all tests, were intrinsically biased against
minorities .The typical response to this demand was to argue that tests per se were not biased,
but that tests were misused.Messick and Anderson (1970) argued that not using tests would not
eliminate the need to make decisions, and that alternate decision-making mechanisms such as
interviews and/or observations would be more costly, more biased, and less valid. Others have
argued rather convincingly that the social consequences of not using tests are far more harmful
than the consequences of using tests to make educational decisions ( Ebel, 1963).

There are also some arguments for using tests. Cognitive tests are of value in documenting
patterns of strengths and weaknesses in all children and are useful in documenting change and
progress. Tests represent an objective standard free of examiner prejudice. Tests are equally
good predictors of future performance for white and for minority children. Tests can be useful
for securing and evaluating special services in the schools, such as Head Start programs. Without
appropriate evaluations, children may not receive the services they are entitled
to(Wodrich&Kush,1990).

Another general criticism that is made of intelligence tests is that they ignore the multicultural
aspects of American society, that they treat individuals as if they were culturally homogeneous
(Samuda, 1975). Somewhat more specific arguments against the testing of minority children are
also expressed, and most of these can be subsumed under four categories:

1. Cognitive tests are biased because they have been developed to mirror middle-class, white
values and experiences .The counter argument is that infact there is no evidence that cognitive
tests are biased against minority members.
2. Minorities are not represented in the norms and therefore score interpretation is
inappropriate. Although this argument may apply to some tests, it does not apply to the major
cognitive measures such as the Stanford-Binet or the WISC, whose norms are representative of
the general population according to census parameters.

3. Minority students do not have the appropriate test-taking skills, sophistication, or orientation
(e.g., awareness of the need to answer rapidly on a timed test). Poor test-taking skills are of
course not the sole province of minority children; nonminority children can be just as deficient.
The issue here is of competence in administering tests. The examiner should be aware and
recognize individual factors that may interfere with or limit the child’s performance, regardless
of the ethnicity of the child. Test results for a particular child may indeed be limited and even
invalid, although the test itself may be valid from a psychometric point of view.

4. Most examiners are white and use Standard English with detrimental effects on minority
children’s scores. The literature indicates that the effect of examiner race on cognitive test scores
is negligible (Sattler&Gwynne,1982). Fewer studies have been done on the effects of using
Standard English vs. Black dialect, but the results here also suggest negligible differences.

Extraneous variables

It is sometimes argued that certain types of test items are biased against particular groups. In
particular, there is concern that what are nonessential characteristics of particular test items may
result in poorer performance for minority children. For example, if we wish to measure arithmetic
skills and the problems are presented as vignettes (e.g., John has six oranges . . .), the use of words
that are less familiar to one group than another may result in a biased item. If it were a matter of
only vocabulary then possible solutions might be relatively easy. However,the matter becomes
more complex because aspects such as test anxiety or differences in motivation may interact with
aspects of the test items.

Limited English proficiency

English is not the first language for a substantial number of students in the United States, and they
have limited English proficiency. Their number seems to be growing and, because of increased
use of standardized tests in school systems, there is great concern that test results for these students
may either be less valid or misused.
CROSS-CULTURAL ASSESSMENT
When psychological tests were first developed, particularly those of intelligence, researchers
attempted to develop measures that would not be affected by differing cultural factors such as
language, literacy (i.e., ability to read), test sophistication, and so on. For example, if test items
could be developed that did not require language, such items could be used in a test that could be
administered to groups having different languages, and such tests would then be “culture free.”
Eventually, it became apparent that valid culture-free tests could not be developed. Behavior does
not exist in a vacuum, and culture is not simply an outside veneer that can be discarded at will.
Thus, in the measurement of intelligence there was a shift from “culture-free” tests to “culture-
fair” tests that need to be evaluated and validated within each culture.
Problems in cross-cultural testing.
There are many problems associated with cross-cultural research and particularly with the use of
specific tests in different cultures. For example, translations from one language to another may
result in instruments that are not really equivalent.
Psychological constructs such as depression, ego-strength, or intelligence may not necessarily be
equivalent across languages and/or cultures. There may be crucial differences from one culture to
another in terms of test sophistication and test-taking behavior. A test may well have content
validity in one country, but not in another.
Translating from one language to another.
If we wanted to determine the utility of a particular test that was developed in the United States n
another country, such as Venezuela, for example, we would translate the test into Spanish and
carry out the necessary assessments of reliability and validity in Venezuela. In fact, most of the
major commercially published tests, such as the Stanford-Binet, the WISC, the MMPI, and the
CPI, are available in various languages. However, translation is not a simple matter of looking up
the equivalent words in a dictionary. Common objects in one culture may be uncommon in another;
bland words in one language may have strong affective meanings in another. Phrases may be
translated correctly in a literary sense, but not be colloquially correct; maintaining the language
equivalence of an instrument across languages can be difficult.