ITC Workshop at the EAWOP2015 in Oslo

Two of the ITC Officers, Dave Bartram and Dragos Iliescu, will hold a joint workshop in test adaptation ("Test Adaptation: Putting the ITC Guidelines into practice") at the 17th Congress of the European Association of Work and Organizational Psychology (EAWOP), to be held 2015 May 20th-23rd in Oslo, Norway.

This workshop is aimed at practitioners interested in test use across countries, cultures and languages. We share our practical experience of judgmental procedures in translation and adaptation and in the appropriate statistical techniques for determining equivalence at different levels.

Since the advent of the internet in the 1990s, employment related testing across national boundaries and cultures has become an omni-present phenomenon. However, this requires assessment materials that are suited for use across languages, cultures and national boundaries. Whilst tests have long been translated into different languages (usually using a process of forward and backward translation), this does not necessarily ensure equivalence at item, scale or construct level.

Without full equivalence we run the risk of biasing the assessment process. In order to prevent this, test adaptation needs to be guided by an evidence-based set of guidelines and procedures that aid practitioners in the adaptation and construction of tools for international use, which apply regardless of the actual languages being used.

This workshop will familiarise delegates with the ITC guidelines on test adaptation in an applied context, and show how they can be operationalised at different measurement levels. We will present an evidence-based framework that will provide delegates with a rich toolkit for their own practice.