Measuring attitudes toward stuttering: English-to-French translations in Canada and Cameroon

Abstract

Purpose: A field test of a survey instrument under development, the Public Opinion Survey of Human Attributes, Experimental Edition (POSHA-E), designed to investigate language-, culture-, and nation-specific public opinions about stuttering is reported. This investigation compared English and French versions of the POSHA-E in widely disparate cultures to explore country versus language influences.

Methods: 120 experimental respondents rated POSHA-E items on 1-9 equal-appearing interval scales: 30 in English and 30 in French in both Canada and Cameroon. Comparisons were made with 30 matched, monolingual, American respondents in English only.

Results: Between-country differences for stuttering in experimental groups were much larger than between-language differences.

Conclusions: The POSHA-E can be translated to another language, i.e. French, without significant change in item meaning and interpretation in two divergent cultures, advancing the development and validity of an instrument that can be used in different language and cultural settings worldwide.

Learning outcomes: Readers of this article should be able to describe the purpose of the Public Opinion Survey of Human Attributes (POSHA); describe translation and back-translation procedures for public opinion surveys to be used internationally; discuss cultural and linguistic differences between convenience samples from Ottawa, Canada and Douala, Cameroon; and compare the results of language versus country explanations of the results of this two-country investigation.