Instrument Development for Ethnic Minority Research

A Conceptual Model to Guide Instrument Development

There has been a move away from the assumption that research questions and methods developed among majority groups are invariably relevant in research with ethnic minority groups. A parallel trend at the international level is reflected in the indigenous psychology movement, which offers a paradigm to guide new instrument development for use with minority groups. Indigenous psychology rejects the innocent ethnocentrism that underlies psychological research in non-Western nations. This movement questions the assumption of universal applicability of questions, constructs, and methods developed in the Western world. Instead, indigenous psychology emphasizes the development of new knowledge that is relevant to the sociocultural reality of the groups being examined. The movement was propelled by a belief that psychology is not externally imposed but develops from cultural traditions, a position that is consistent with ethnic minority research in North America. Because minority cultures are not isolated and may share many continuities with their larger culture, such an approach modifies and expands existing psychological constructs to better fit the ethnic minority cultural context.

Adoption, Adaptation, Supplementation, and Substitution

Instruments that are used with ethnic minority groups may be identical to those that already exist (adopted); they may be changed to include additional items and to exclude items that are not relevant (adapted or supplemented); or they may be created in their entirety to replace an existing test or establish a new instrument (substitution). When the constructs to be examined do not overlap at all with existing measures, new instruments must be developed. This is an uncommon situation. More often, concepts show some overlap with those in the majority culture.

For example, guan, a guiding structure for Chinese parenting derived from Confucian philosophy, combines some facets of parenting constructs that have been developed in work with Caucasian youth, but it is not entirely captured by the items developed to tap these constructs. Where parallels exist, careful qualitative work during the preparation stage can guide additions and accommodations to existing instruments. Such work is invaluable in the decision to adopt, adapt, substitute, or supplement existing instruments for use with ethnic minority groups.

Preparatory Work

Qualitative methods in the early stages of instrument development are particularly important to protect against construct bias. Construct bias results when the items used to tap the construct are inappropriate for the group of interest. This bias is a particular danger in the adaptation of existing instruments, where manifestations of the construct to be assessed may not be equivalent in the minority and original groups. For example, parenting inventories developed with middle-class, majority-culture adolescents include the item “My parent offers to help me with my homework” as a measure of involvement. This item would not be an accurate measure of the construct of involvement in first-generation immigrant families, whose language and academic skills may not be conducive to such shared activity. Test-item composition should reflect culturespecific variations of the expression of the construct in the target group. Focus groups with participants from the culture of interest and expert panels may be more important sources of information about the culturespecific manifestation of the construct.

...