Cross-cultural Research Methods

Abstract

Cross-cultural studies involve persons from different countries and/or ethnic groups. One of the central methodological problems of these studies is bias, the generic term for rival explanations of cross-cultural differences. Three different types of bias are distinguished, depending on whether the source of interpretation problems derives from the construct, method of the study, or specific items (called construct, method, and item bias or differential item functioning, respectively). Equivalence refers to the implications of bias on score comparability. Linguistic, structural, measurement unit, and full score equivalence are described. Issues in test translation (translation—back-translation, committee designs, decentering) are discussed. Common subject- and culture-sampling schemes in cross-cultural research are mentioned. The article ends with a discussion of issues in combining individual- and country-level characteristics.