Scenario
A scale assessing the quality of the relationship between clients and practitioners that was used successfully in a study with English speaking Americans contained the following item with which respondents could agree or disagree: “We did not see eye to eye.” When preparing the scale to be used with people in Mexico, that item was translated perfectly into Spanish. However, several of the researchers agreed about whether or not this was adequate.
Professor Khan states that a word by word translation was acceptable, since they had verified it was correct.
Professor Senkowski argues that, although the word for word translation was a good start, they should probably do a small pilot study just to be safe.
Professor McAllister proposes that “seeing eye to eye” is an idiom and, as a result, a literal word for word translation is unacceptable and misleading.
Which approach to translation for cross cultural research do you believe is the most appropriate? Provide a brief explanation and rationale for why (5-6 sentences).
