Instrument Development for Ethnic Minority Research

Most psychological test instruments have been developed and validated only with majority group populations; therefore, their universal applicability cannot be assumed. When adapting or developing instruments for use with minority populations, construct bias must be avoided and linguistic and semantic relevance should be ensured in the preparatory phase. Psychometric properties should then be established and normative indicators derived for each group with which the instrument is to be used. Single-culture versus cross-cultural group comparisons require some different considerations.