Culture-neutral Assessment

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Use of ‘culture free’ tests in psychological assessment has proved beneficial and appropriate when dealing with people from diverse cultures. With such tests, the culture of respective subjects does not influence the judgment of the psychologists (Afolabi, 2014). Although this sounds theoretically feasible, it is practically difficult and requires an evidence-based selection process.
The first step is to avoid bias (Gerstein, 2009). Construct bias occurs when a test measures one thing in a given population and measures something different in another community. The test must measure only one aspect across the board. Method bias happens when different techniques are used to collect data from the subjects. Only one method ought to be used in gathering the information. Any variation in methodology must be explained to the participants. Finally, item bias occurs when there is the ambiguity of research item or when certain cultures have a low familiarity with the items included in the study. Proper item translation, wherever possible, can solve item bias.
The second step is to maintain construct equivalence, measurement unit equivalence, and full-scale equivalence (Gerstein, 2009). As a methodological approach, construct equivalence tries to oversee the cultural differences that may affect results of the study in two or more cultural setups. On the other hand, measurement unit equivalence holds when the scale used to measure an aspect are…