Instrument adaptation in cross-cultural studies of students’ mathematics-related beliefs: learning from healthcare research

Much comparative research into education-related beliefs has exploitedquestionnaires developed in one culture for use in another. This hasbeen particularly the case in mathematics education, the focus of thispaper. In so doing, researchers have tended to assume that translationalone is sufficient to warrant a reliable and valid instrument forcross-cultural research, prompting concerns that a number of necessaryequivalences are unlikely to have been addressed. In this paper, we considerthe nature of these equivalences before examining the literature ofa different field, healthcare research, to synthesise an approach to instrumentadaptation that is pragmatic but rigorous. Finally, we demonstratehow this pragmatic approach, incorporating extensive cognitive interviews,enabled us to adapt and refine a mathematics-related beliefsquestionnaire, developed in Flanders, for use with students aged 14–15in England and Spain. Analyses indicate that the instrument so developedis multidimensional, reliable and cross-culturally valid. Someimplications are discussed.