translation and validation of the chinese form of the strong interest inventory

Translation and Validation of the Chinese Formof the Strong Interest Inventory

David S. Goh*City University of New York, USA

Jiayuan YuNanjing Normal University, China

Une version chinoise de l'Inventaire d'InteÂ reÃ ts de Strong de 1994 (SII) a eÂ teÂeÂ laboreÂ e en trois phases. On s'est assureÂ que la traduction correspondait bienaÁ la forme anglaise sur le plan linguistique et renvoyait aÁ des connotationscomparables. Des donneÂ es recueillies sur le terrain aÁ partir de deux eÂ chantillonschinois (N1=124; N2=40) et d'un eÂ chantillon ameÂ ricain (N3=52) confirm-eÁ rent l'eÂ quivalence meÂ trique des deux versions. Un calcul de correÂ lations, le tde Student appliqueÂ aux paires d'items et une analyse de profils montreÁ rentsans ambiguõÈ teÂ que les SII ameÂ ricain et chinois fournissaient des reÂ sultats treÁ sproches sur les trois types de mesures: les theÁ mes professionnels geÂ neraux(GOT), les eÂ chelles d'inteÂ reÃ ts de base (BIS) et les eÂ chelles professionnelles (OS).Des diffeÂ rences statistiquement significatives entre les deux versions ne sontapparues que sur une eÂ chelle de base et sur deux eÂ chelles professionnelles dansdes sous-eÂ chantillons seÂ lectionneÂ s des deux sexes. Une analyse factorielleexploitant l'extraction de probabiliteÂ maximale et la rotation oblique mit eneÂ vidence six grandes dimensions d'inteÂ reÃ ts professionnels sur le SII chinois:Entreprenant (E), Investigateur (I), Artiste (A), Civique (P), ReÂ aliste (R), etSocial (S). On examine les probleÁ mes lieÂ s aÁ une meilleure adaptation du SII aÁ laculture chinoise et aÁ son utilisation comme outil d'eÂ valuation.

A Chinese form of the 1994 Strong Interest Inventory (SII) was developedthrough a three-step translation process. The translated version was judged toshow linguistic or inferential equivalence to the SII in English. Field-testingdata based on two Chinese samples (N1=124, N2=40) and one Americansample (N3=52) provided additional support on metric equivalence betweenthe SII and the SII-Chinese. Correlational analysis, paired t-test, and profileanalysis consistently demonstrated that the SII and SII-Chinese yielded highlycomparable results at all three levels of measurementÐGeneral OccupationalThemes (GOT), Basic Interest Scales (BIS), and Occupational Scales (OS).

________________

* Address for correspondence: Department of Educational Programs, Queens College, City

University of New York, 65-30 Kissena Blvd., Flushing, New York 11367-1597, USA. Email:

[email protected]

APPLIED PSYCHOLOGY: AN INTERNATIONAL REVIEW, 2001, 50 (2), 252±268

# International Association for Applied Psychology, 2001. Published by Blackwell Publishers,108 Cowley Road, Oxford OX4 1JF, UK and 350 Main Street, Malden, MA 02148, USA.

Statistically significant difference between the SII and SII-Chinese was foundonly on one basic scale and two occupational scales in selected male andfemale subsamples. Factor analysis, using maximum likelihood extractionand oblique rotation, identified six broad occupational interest dimensions onthe SII-Chinese: Enterprising (E), Investigative (I), Artistic (A), Public (P),Realistic (R), and Social (S). Implications for further adapting the SII-Chineseto better fit the Chinese culture and to be used as an assessment tool in Chinaare discussed.

INTRODUCTION

The measurement of vocational interests has been a major area of researchin cross-cultural psychology. Several interest instruments developed andused widely in the United States have been adapted for use in othercountries. One such instrument is the Strong Interest Inventory that wasdeveloped originally more than 70 years ago and has gone through tworecent revisions in 1985 and 1994. Over the years, the Strong has gainedincreasing usage in many English-speaking as well as non-English-speakingcountries. According to Harmon, Hansen, Borgen, and Hammer (1994),earlier versions of the Strong Interest Inventory (i.e. the Strong VocationalInterest Blank, SVIB; the Strong-Campbell Interest Inventory, SCII) havebeen translated or adapted to Spanish, French Canadian, Hebrew, Italian,Swedish, Bahamian, German, Icelandic, and Portuguese. These translatedversions of the Strong have been used for both professional (i.e. careercounselling) and research purposes in the respective countries.

A sound translation or adaptation is essential to the valid use of apsychological instrument in a second country. Ideally, before a translatedtest can be put in use, evidence should be available to demonstrate linguistic,metric, and construct equivalence between the original and translated formsof the instrument (Brislin, Lonner, & Thorndike, 1973; Lonner, 1985, 1990).Linguistic equivalence means that items on the two versions of the testshould have the same meaning. Metric equivalence refers to the compar-ability of the scores between the original and translated instruments.Construct equivalence requires the two forms of the test to measure thesame underlying construct of interest. Hansen (1987) describes a three-stepprocess for establishing linguistic or inferential equivalence between theoriginal test and the translated version. The first step is to translate theinstrument from the original language to the language of the targetedculture. The second step is to back-translate the target language version intothe original source language. The third step involves the comparisonbetween the two source language versions (one of which resulted from theback-translation) and identify and remedy any discrepancies. Hansen (1987)further suggests that field testing should be conducted to empirically validate

TRANSLATION AND VALIDATION OF THE SII 253

# International Association for Applied Psychology, 2001.

metric equivalence between the original and the translated instrument. Otherresearchers also have discussed considerations that should be addressedcarefully to ensure the quality of translated tests. For example, it is generallyagreed that test translators should be fluent in both the source and targetlanguages of the test, familiar with both cultures, and knowledgeable aboutpsychological measurement. However, these methodological suggestionshave not always been followed by researchers in translating tests from onelanguage to a second language (Brislin, 1970; Hambleton & Kanjee, 1994).Often, evidence is lacking in cross-cultural research regarding the equiv-alence between the original and translated tests. In particular, field testing isseldom conducted to investigate score comparability between the originaltest and the translated test. Furthermore, many studies reported little in-formation about the test translation process, making it very difficult tojudge the adequacy of the translations. Hambleton and Kanjee (1994) callfor improved methodology in translating or adapting tests across nationalboundaries to increase the validity of cross-cultural research.The available research to date suggests that the Strong Interest Inventory

is potentially a good candidate for international use (Hansen, 1987). None-theless, a noticeable gap exists in the current literature in translating oradapting the Strong for use in Asian countries. Although there has been asmall amount of research involving various Asian samples, such as Filipinomen (Cruz, 1957), Japanese men (Kodama, 1962), Pakistani engineers (Shah,1970), and Taiwanese students (Chu, 1975), all of these studies were basedon English versions of the Strong. A recent search of the cross-culturalliterature through 1999 failed to reveal any research translating or adaptingthe Strong inventories to fit the cultures of Asian countries. It is the purposeof the present study to fill this research void by developing a methodo-logically sound translation of the Strong Interest Inventory for potential usein the most populous country in Asia. In recent years there has been anincreasing need in China for psychological instruments that can be used forvocational assessment, career counselling and research. However, as inmany other Asian countries, there is presently a lack of such instruments inChina. It would be highly desirable if a theory-based and empiricallyvalidated instrument like the Strong Interest Inventory could be adapted foruse in China as well as other Chinese-speaking regions and communities.The present study was part of a series of efforts designed to systematicallyexamine the feasibility of translating and adapting the Strong to fit theChinese culture and world of work. Specifically, in the first part of the studythe Strong Interest Inventory was translated to Chinese and evaluation wasmade regarding the linguistic or inferential validity of the translatedinventory. In the second part, field testing was conducted to examine themetric and construct equivalence between the Chinese and American formsof the Strong Interest Inventory.

254 GOH AND YU


METHOD

The Strong Interest Inventory

The 1994 edition of the Strong Interest Inventory (SII; Harmon, Hansen,Borgen, & Hammer, 1994) is the latest revision of the Strong inventoryseries. The SII contains a total of 317 items which are organised into eightdifferent parts: Occupations (135 items), School Subjects (39 items),Activities (46 items), Leisure Activities (29 items), Types of People (20items), Preference Between Two Activities (30 items), Your Characteristics(12 items), and Preference in the World of Work (6 items). The results yieldscores on three levels of measurement: 6 General Occupational Themes(GOTs), 25 Basic Interest Scales (BISs), and 104 Occupational Scales (OSs)for men and 107 Occupational Scales for women. The 1994 SII shows anumber of significant improvements over the 1981 SCII. For example, testitems are more sensitive and effective in reflecting the contemporary jobtypes and related interests and activities; five new occupational scales (i.e.paralegal) were added to the inventory; the profile report was redesignedand easy to use for test interpretation. In addition, more diversity wasincluded in the main and reference samples and evidence of high reliabilityand validity is provided.

TheTranslators

The selection of translators is key to valid translation of a psychologicalinstrument from one language to another language. As indicated earlier,qualified translators should be fluent in both the source and target languagesof the instrument, be familiar with both cultures, and have adequate knowl-edge in psychological testing and measurement. In the present study, fourtranslators were used in the translation processÐtwo in the United States andtwo in China. All translators were professionals with a Chinese origin andfluent in both English and Chinese. These bilingual translators also werefamiliar with the American and Chinese cultures. The first and second authorswho were both professors in psychology with expertise in cross-culturalmeasurement, served among the four translators. The third translator, re-cruited in the USA, was a post-master's-level individual who came to the USAafter having completed her baccalaureate degree and taught as a universityinstructor in China. The fourth translator who was recruited in China heldthe rank of Professor of English at the same university where the secondauthor was employed. In addition, two bilingual, master's-level researchersfrom the university where the first author was employed were recruited tojudge the accuracy of the Chinese translation of the SII. Both `̀ judges'' werenative Chinese speaking individuals who were also fluent in English.



ForwardTranslation

Initially, two separate versions of the Chinese translation of the SII weredeveloped independently. The first version was translated by the first authorin the United States and the second version by the second author and hisEnglish professor colleague in China. Efforts were made by the respectivetranslators to strive for linguistic and inferential equivalence between the SIIand the Chinese translations. Once the initial translations were completed,the translated version prepared in China was sent to the first author in theUSA who was responsible for combining the two versions into one. Anitem-by-item comparison was made during the process of merging the twotranslated versions. Complete agreement between the two translatedChinese versions was found on more than 75 per cent of the items. Non-identical translations were noted on the remaining 25 per cent. However,a good portion of these nonidentical items showed rather minor differencebetween the two translations. Efforts were made to reconcile the dis-crepancies on each of these items. This was done through three procedures:(1) whenever possible, the better of the two translations was selected on theitem of interest, (2) slight modifications were made, as appropriate, to unifyminor wording differences between the two translations, (3) a new, moreaccurate translation was chosen to substitute the two initial translations onthe item of interest, if necessary.Several difficulties were encountered in preparing the Chinese translations

and combining the two translated forms into one. Despite the great caretaken to strive for linguistic equivalence between the Chinese and Englishversions, it was not always possible to achieve this goal. On a small numberof items, there was a clear lack of Chinese equivalents, either linguistically orculturally, of the English terms or phrases used in the SII. Literal translationof these items would be too simplistic and yield terms or phrases that are notmeaningful in the Chinese world of work. On these items, comparabletranslations were used instead of literal translations. For example, there isno Chinese equivalent for the American term of `̀ athletic director'' (item 10on the SII). Responsibilities of `̀ athletic director'' as known in the UnitedStates are assumed by coaches in China. Therefore, it would be in-appropriate to make a literal translation of `̀ athletic director'' in Chinese.Instead, we chose the Chinese title of `̀ sports coach'' as a comparabletranslation for the item (`̀ athletic director''). The purpose for doing this wasto make the translated item culturally meaningful without having to deviatesignificantly from the original item in English. Another example involved`̀ bank teller'' (item 17) and `̀ cashier in bank'' (item 27). Both items whentranslated to Chinese would result in the same job title that is equivalent to`̀ bank teller'' in the United States. Obviously, it would be inappropriate touse this same job title for both items 17 and 27 in the Chinese version. To

256 GOH AND YU


avoid this redundancy, we made a literal translation on item 17 (`̀ bankteller'') and selected the phrase `̀ senior clerk in bank'' in Chinese as acomparable translation of `̀ cashier in bank'' on item 27.

A different type of difficulty also occurred on a few other items. On theseitems, an occupation, a school subject, or an activity that appears on theSII does exist in China, but it carries a different title or name in Chinese.For example, terms like `̀ Headwaiter/Hostess'' (item 272) has no linguisticequivalent in Chinese. Waiters in China are addressed as `̀ service persons''.Therefore, we translated `̀ Headwaiter/Hostess'' on item 272 to `̀ (Restaurant)head male/female service person'' to reflect this cultural preference. Inaddition, substitution of words was used in translating one item. In item150, `̀ English composition/writing'', the word `̀ English'' was substituted by`̀ Chinese'' to appropriately reflect the intent of the original itemÐto assessthe test taker's likes or dislikes for composition/writing in his or her nativelanguage. Table 1 shows the 15 items that required comparable translationin Chinese.

Overall, the two translated Chinese versions showed a high degree ofagreement. The combined version provided a unified Chinese translation ofthe SII that is superior to either one of the two initial versions. This wasachieved through a rather lengthy process of comparison, consultation,modification, and editing. Once the unified version was completed, it wassent to the translators in China for further review and they agreed fully tothe unified version. Subsequently, two other bilingual, master-levelprofessionals were recruited in the United States to judge the equivalencebetween the SII and the Chinese version. Both `̀ judges'' rated the unifiedChinese version to be linguistically and culturally equivalent to the SII inEnglish.

Back-translation

A second translator was then recruited in the United States to translate theunified Chinese version of the SII back to English. This translator was notinvolved in the initial translation of the SII into Chinese and was notinformed of the purpose of the study. The translator was given a copy ofthe Chinese version and was instructed to translate it into English. Emphasiswas made to the translator that it was essential to make the translationas `̀ loyal'' as possible to the Chinese version and, in the meantime, to makethe translation appropriate in the context of American culture. Upon thecompletion of the back-translation by the second translator, the first authorcompared the English back-translation to the Chinese form of the SII toensure that no obvious or careless errors were made in the back-translation.

Next, comparisons were performed between the two English versions (theoriginal SII and the English back-translation) to determine the equivalence



of the two forms. The results of this comparison revealed a high degree ofconsistency between the SII and the English back-translation. No differencewas found on 256 of the 317 SII items (80.8%). Minor semantic or stylisticdifferences between the two versions were found on 46 items (14.5%). A greatmajority of these differences, however, reflected mainly differing preferencein word usage/selection and did not affect the meaning of the items. Forexample, `̀ clothes designer'' was back-translated to `̀ garment designer'',`̀ making statistical charts'' was back-translated to `̀ making statisticalgraphs'', etc. Slightly larger differences between the two forms were notedon a few other items, such as `̀ advertising department manager'' for`̀ advertising executive'', `̀ shopping for the latest fashion of clothes'' for`̀ shopping for the latest fashion'', etc. A review of these items indicated thatthese slight wording deviations in the back-translated English version wereresults of literal English translation of the Chinese terms or phrases on theseitems. These deviations did not change significantly the meaning of theoriginal items. Thus, linguistic or inferential equivalence was achieved on302 of the 317 items (95.3%).However, greater discrepancies between the original SII and the English

back-translation were found on the 15 items for which comparable trans-lations were made when the SII was translated into Chinese (see Table 1).This was not unexpected since these comparable translations were consideredas `̀ replacements'' rather than equivalents of the items on the original SII.Further evaluation of these 15 English back-translated items indicated that14 did not deviate either linguistically or inferentially from the Chinese

TABLE 1ComparableTranslations of SII Items with No Linguistic Equivalence in Chinese

SII items Comparable translations

Athletic director Sports coach

Cashier in bank Senior clerk in bank

Civic service employee Municipal employee

Employment manager Personnel manager

Forest ranger Forest protector

Landscape gardener Landscape designer

Paralegal Legal assistant

Paramedic Medical assistant

Waiter/waitress Male/female service person

Acting Drama

English composition/writing Chinese composition/writing

Military drill Military training

Doing your own laundry work Washing your own clothes

Nonconformists People who do not conform

Headwaiter/hostess (Restaurant) head service person

258 GOH AND YU


translations. On the remaining one item (item 73, `̀ landscape gardener''), theterm `̀ horticulturist'' was produced in the English back-translation, wherethe comparable translation in Chinese denoted `̀ landscape designer''.Overall, the high degree of agreement between the SII and the Englishback-translation provided further support for the linguistic or inferentialequivalence of the Chinese form of the SII.

FieldTesting

Following the completion of the translation and linquistic validation, fieldtesting was conducted to determine metric equivalence between the SII andthe Chinese form of the inventory (SII-Chinese). A total of 216 subjects (meanage=23.41 years, SD=5.38 years) in three separate samples participatedin the field testing. Sample 1 consisted of 124 Chinese students (45 males and79 females) enrolled in a university in Southeast China. These students wereupper class English majors and possessed adequate command of English.Sample 2 comprised 40 bilingual graduate students (16 males and 24 females)in a university on the east coast of the United States. These students werenative Chinese speakers but also were fluent in English. The third sample,on the other hand, constituted monolingual English-speaking subjects.Participants in this sample were 52 American graduate students (17 malesand 35 females) enrolled in the same university as were the second sample inthe United States.

The SII and the SII-Chinese were administered to sample 1 in China andto sample 2 in the United States. Administration of both forms was done inthe same manner in the two respective countries, following the standardprocedures described in the inventory (Harmon, Hansen, Borgen, & Hammer,1994). A counter-balanced procedure was used in administering the SIIs, inthat half of the subjects in each sample were administered first the SIIfollowed by SII-Chinese and the remaining half received the administrationin the reverse order. These same procedures were used in administering thetwo English versions (SII and the English back-translation) to the mono-lingual American sample. The interval between the first and second admin-istrations ranged between one week and 10 days for all three samples.

RESULTS

Several methods were used in analysing the field-testing data. First, therelationships between the SII and the two translated forms (SII-Chineseand the English back-translation) were examined. Tables 2, 3, and 4 displaythe means, SDs, and correlations for the three Chinese and Americansamples. As can be seen from these tables, consistently high correlations(all P50.0001) were demonstrated between the SII and SII-Chinese as well



as the English back-translation. The correlations ranged between 0.93 and0.73 for the six General Occupational Themes and between 0.95 and 0.72 forthe 25 Basic Interest Scales. The findings were consistent across the twoChinese samples and the American sample.

TABLE 2Means, Standard Deviations, and Correlations Between the SII and SII-Chinese

for Chinese Sample 1 (N=124)

Scales SII SII-Chinese rb

M SD M SD

General Occupational Themes

Realistic 43.86 8.65 44.18 8.73 .93

Investigative 44.16 9.41 43.87 9.54 .89

Artistic 51.25 9.18 51.82 8.64 .91

Social 46.08 8.39 46.30 8.12 .84

Enterprising 52.25 10.46 51.38 10.08 .87

Conventional 49.19 9.05 50.23 8.91 .78

Basic Interest Scales

Agriculture 43.15 7.34 43.06 7.73 .86

Nature 45.68 8.48 45.15 8.79 .85

Military activities 56.19 10.74 56.57 11.38 .90

Athletics 48.09 8.52 47.22 7.61 .87

Mechanical activities 45.06 8.42 45.63 8.60 .92

Science 44.82 9.22 44.97 9.07 .95

Mathematics 45.63 9.03 45.27 8.38 .94

Medical science 43.14 9.11 43.14 8.99 .90

Music/Dramatics 49.79 10.21 50.48 9.98 .90

Art 53.24 8.08 52.92 7.92 .87

Applied arts 51.73 7.14 52.25 6.77 .91

Writing 51.70 8.33 52.16 7.68 .90

Culinary arts 50.83 8.27 50.15 8.72 .77

Teaching 46.08 8.43 45.46 9.25 .86

Social service 50.97 8.19 50.31 7.56 .75

Medical service 44.06 7.04 44.44 7.08 .81

Religious activities 43.71 8.96 43.94 8.67 .89

Public speaking 50.54 9.22 50.70 8.92 .84

Law/Politics 48.86 9.18 49.22 9.48 .90

Merchandising 52.14 8.54 52.06 8.57 .85

Sales 57.00 10.47 57.44 10.41 .89

Organisationala 52.86 9.41 54.31 9.75 .85

Data management 49.72 8.31 48.15 7.97 .91

Computer activities 51.45 8.11 52.08 8.47 .93

Office services 51.57 7.33 53.50 7.52 .75

a Organisational managementb All P50.0001

260 GOH AND YU


To investigate metric equivalence of the SII-Chinese, a series of pairedt-tests was performed to determine whether the SII and the two translatedversions yield comparable scores. The Bonferroni correction procedure(e.g. dividing a among multiple comparisons) was used in specifying more

TABLE 3Means, Standard Deviations, and Correlations Between the SII and SII-Chinese

for Chinese Sample 2 (N=40)

Scales SII SII-Chinese rb

M SD M SD


Realistic 43.95 7.26 42.38 9.21 .73

Investigative 46.80 10.06 47.65 11.94 .86

Artistic 47.75 8.33 48.82 9.22 .75

Social 44.25 8.13 42.05 9.96 .85

Enterprising 47.93 8.11 47.73 9.69 .93

Conventional 49.85 9.45 47.35 9.12 .84


Agriculture 39.23 8.79 41.05 8.98 .78

Nature 40.30 9.00 42.70 9.67 .81


Athletics 46.48 9.23 45.15 9.38 .84


Science 50.03 9.13 50.33 9.22 .78

Mathematics 51.30 10.12 48.30 9.95 .87

Medical science 44.10 8.22 44.78 9.90 .74

Music/Dramatics 49.88 8.66 49.93 8.12 .90

Art 51.03 9.03 51.93 9.85 .83

Applied arts 42.08 10.06 46.36 11.14 .77

Writing 46.60 9.66 46.40 10.30 .75

Culinary arts 48.08 9.90 46.13 10.23 .74

Teaching 46.10 9.09 45.80 9.29 .91

Social service 47.18 8.97 47.20 9.57 .85

Medical service 44.80 8.00 43.15 9.51 .79


Public speaking 46.50 7.59 48.85 9.99 .72

Law/Politics 46.70 7.31 45.55 9.62 .75

Merchandising 47.43 8.05 46.68 9.23 .84

Sales 51.30 8.18 51.90 9.22 .86


Data management 40.28 10.78 38.32 10.23 .82


Office services 51.18 7.18 48.53 7.35 .72




conservative levels of significance for these analyses: a=0.001 for GeneralOccupational Themes and Basic Interest Scales; a=0.0005 for OccupationalScales. The results showed no significant difference between the SII and SII-Chinese at the GOT level for the two Chinese samples (all P40.001) and

TABLE 4Means, Standard Deviations, and Correlations Between theTwo EnglishVersions

for the American Sample (N=52)

Scales SII English back-translation rb

M SD M SD


Realistic 46.19 8.75 45.50 9.20 .90

Investigative 48.19 9.55 47.50 9.75 .87

Artistic 53.37 10.08 52.44 9.94 .93

Social 58.81 9.08 58.35 9.52 .92

Enterprising 48.10 9.54 48.08 9.50 .88

Conventional 45.50 8.54 44.44 7.11 .81


Agriculture 45.42 9.14 44.13 9.05 .80

Nature 46.23 11.11 45.46 10.50 .84


Athletics 48.60 9.05 49.27 8.98 .91


Science 48.63 9.03 47.65 9.43 .86

Mathematics 45.62 10.92 46.10 9.85 .92

Medical science 52.27 9.24 51.21 9.71 .81

Music/Dramatics 54.02 10.03 53.19 9.46 .93

Art 54.35 9.60 53.02 9.46 .90

Applied arts 52.58 9.90 51.00 9.84 .87

Writing 50.94 10.55 49.69 10.95 .95

Culinary arts 54.12 10.31 54.96 9.81 .86

Teaching 57.19 8.08 57.65 9.11 .89

Social service 60.44 9.34 60.06 9.30 .92

Medical service 54.38 9.41 52.31 9.08 .83


Public speaking 48.46 10.05 48.31 9.10 .93

Law/Politics 48.40 11.09 47.46 11.02 .94

Merchandising 47.50 9.57 47.54 9.21 .86

Sales 48.56 8.92 47.67 8.22 .80


Data management 44.06 8.48 43.17 7.61 .88


Office services 46.19 7.69 44.89 6.67 .82


262 GOH AND YU


between the SII and the English back-translation for the American sample(all P40.001). Highly similar findings were obtained also at the BIS level,with only one exception where the SII and SII-Chinese yielded statisticallysignificant different scores on the Office Services scale for Chinese sample 1,t(124)=74.12, P50.001. No other significant difference was detected onany of the other BIS scales for the Chinese and American samples.

In terms of occupational scales, minimum difference was found also be-tween the SII and the two translated versions. Of the total 104 occupationalscales for males, no significant difference was found between the SII andSII-Chinese in Chinese sample 1 (all P40.0005), and only one significantdifference, on the Forester scale [t (16)=74.70, P50.0005], was found forChinese sample 2. Of the total 107 scales for females, one significant differ-ence, on the Speech Pathologist scale [t (79)=3.97, P50.0005], was foundfor Chinese sample 1 and no significant difference was found for Chinesesample 2. In addition, no significant difference was found between the SIIand the English back-translation on any of the male and female occu-pational scales for the American sample.

To further test the hypothesis of metric equivalence, profile analyses wereconducted using a MANOVA design. This design is useful in determiningthe parallelism or similarity of score profiles in terms of line segments ofadjacent scales (Morrison, 1976). For each of the three samples, a total of19 profile analyses between the SII and the two translated forms were made:one GOT profile, six BIS profiles (one within each General OccupationalTheme), six Occupational Scale profiles for males (one within each GOT),and six Occupational Scale profiles for females (one within each GOT). Ofthe total 57 profiles analyses conducted, none of the multivariate andunivariate F statistics was found to be statistically significant (all P40.05).

Finally, factor analysis was performed to examine the underlying struc-ture of the SII-Chinese. This was done with Chinese sample 1 (N=124)only, since the size of Chinese sample 2 (N=40) was too small to reachan appropriate cases:variables ratio. Maximum likelihood extraction andoblique rotation were used in analysing scores on the 25 Basic InterestScales. A six-factor model was found to yield the most meaningful solution.All six factors had Eigenvalues greater than 1 and in total accounted for71.4 per cent of the variance. Moderate to high factor loadings were shownconsistently on all six factors. The results are displayed in Table 5. Thesesix factors showed both similarities and differences in comparison to thegeneral occupational themes on the SII. Generally speaking, factors 3, 5,and 6 reasonably approximated the Artistic (A), Realistic (R), and Social (S)themes on the SII, respectively, and they were named accordingly. Factor 2was loaded with seven scalesÐfour from the Investigative theme and theremaining three from the Conventional theme. An examination of the threeConventional-theme scales (Data Management, Computer Activities, and



Medical Service) reveals that these occupational interests have beencommonly perceived by the Chinese as more in alignment with maths andscience than any other fields. Therefore, this factor was named `̀ Inves-tigative'' (I), as it appropriately subsumed the common nature of the sevenscales in the context of Chinese culture. Interestingly, the scales comprisingthe Enterprising theme on the SII were divided into two separate factors onthe SII-Chinese. Specifically, the Merchandising, Sales, and Organisation/Management scales loaded significantly on factor 1, and Public Speakingand Law/Politics loaded on factor 4. We retained `̀ Enterprising'' (E) in

TABLE 5Factor Loadingsa on the SII-Chinese Form (N=124)

Scales Factorsb

1 2 3 4 5 6

Merchandising .97

Sales .83

Organisation/management .69

Science .88

Medical science .69

Mechanical activities .66

Mathematics .63

Data management .53

Computer activities .52

Medical service .46 .45

Music/Dramatics .89

Arts .88

Writing .59

Religious activities .54

Applied arts .46

Public speaking .63

Law/Politics .61

Agriculture .88

Military activities .64

Athletics .53

Nature .49

Teaching .70

Culinary arts .65

Office services .49

Social service .47

Eigenvalue 7.27 3.37 3.12 1.71 1.34 1.04

% Variance explained 29.1 13.5 12.5 6.80 5.40 4.20

a Factor loadings less than .40 omitted from the table.b Factor 1=Enterprising, Factor 2=Investigative, Factor 3=Artistic, Factor 4=Public,

Factor 5=Realistic, Factor 6=Social

264 GOH AND YU


designating factor 1 and named factor 4 `̀ Public'' (P) to indicate that theoccupational interests and work activities involved in this factor have to dowith public affairs and have an orientation to influence people. Thus, theSII-Chinese comprised six empirically derived broad dimensions of occu-pational themesÐEnterprising, Investigative, Artistic, Public, Realistic, andSocial. Table 6 displays the correlations among the six designated factors.The correlation coefficients were generally low (mostly 50.20), with only afew exceptions which were at the 0.30 and 0.40 levels.

DISCUSSION

The present study translated and adapted the 1994 SII into Chinese usingtwo teams of qualified professionals through a three-step translation process.Judgemental and empirical validation yielded strong evidence of linguistic,inferential, and metric equivalence between the SII and SII-Chinese. Theresults indicated that the SII-Chinese achieved literal translation accuracyon 302 of the total 317 items (95.3%) of the inventory. Comparable trans-lations were required on the remaining 15 items. It is noted that these 15items, of which a good portion belonged to Part I (Occupations) of theinventory, were more difficult to translate because they contained job titlesor work activities which either were not found or established in China(i.e. paralegal) or were designated under a different title (i.e. `̀ drama'' for`̀ acting''). Comparatively, literal translations were easier to achieve in mostof the other parts of the inventory where proper nouns were used less often.Overall, the number of the SII items which were culturally irrelevant inChina was small. Special efforts were made to adapt these items toappropriately fit the Chinese culture (i.e. `̀ doing your own laundry work''was translated to `̀ washing your own clothes'').

The field-testing results indicated the scores and score profiles yieldedby the SII and SII-Chinese were highly comparable. These findings were

TABLE 6Factor Correlation Matrix of the SII-Chinese (N=124)

Factorsa E I A P R

I .18

A .10 .11

P .36 .14 .01

R .06 .37 .13 .13

S .18 .23 .42 .08 .27

a E=Enterprising, I= Investigative, A=Artistic, P=Public, R=Realistic,

S=Social



consistent at all three levels of measurement (GOTs, BISs, and OSs) acrossall three samples. Consistently high correlations, mostly in the 0.80s and0.90s, also were shown between the SII and SII-Chinese as well as theEnglish back-translation version. The only exception to these findings wasthe statistically significant difference that was found between the SII andSII-Chinese on one basic interest scale (Office Services) and two occupa-tional scales (Speech Pathologist, and Forester). However, these differencesdid not show in all three samples. Given the varied results across the samplesand the small magnitude of the differences found (i.e. 2±3 points), thesefindings are viewed perhaps to be of greater statistical significance thanpractical importance. One speculation is that the observed differences onthe three scales could be simply a function of the present samples. Analternative explanation is that they might be attributed to the way in whichoffice services, speech pathologist, and forester were defined and perceivedin China and the United States. Future research is encouraged to clarify thisissue. We attribute the high metric validity of the SII-Chinese to the accuratetranslation resulting from the careful three-step translation process employedin the present study. The profile analysis findings are particularly encour-aging as they point to the potential value of the SII-Chinese as a researchand clinical tool in counselling.In terms of the underlying construct of the SII-Chinese, the findings from

the factor analysis are significant in several ways. First, both the pattern offactor loadings and the low inter-factor correlations suggest that the sixfactors yielded on the SII-Chinese represent discrete, broad occupationaldimensions. Furthermore, the six-factor structure provides a culturallyrelevant model for understanding the organisation of the work environmentin China. Second, this six-factor model shows both similarities and differ-ences with the six General Occupational Themes on the SII, which werebased on Holland's theory of vocational personality types. Specifically,three of the factors (Factors 3, 5, and 6) found on the SII-Chinese closelymatched the Artistic (A), Realistic (R), and Social (S) themes on the SIIbased on American data. On the other hand, some significant differenceswere found on the remaining three factors between the SII and SII-Chinese.These discrepancies are rather revealing and not unexpected from a culturalviewpoint. As mentioned earlier in the Results section, Factor 2 involvedseven scales from the SII Investigative (I) and Conventional (C) themes andwas named `̀ Investigative'' on the SII-Chinese to better fit the context ofChinese culture. Another difference between the factor structure of the SIIand SII-Chinese was on the Enterprising theme. It was not surprising to seethat the Enterprising theme (E) on the SII was separated into two differ-ent factors (E-Enterprising and P-Public) on the SII-Chinese. Historically,business-related job interests and skills (e.g. sales, merchandising)Ðthe coreof the Enterprising factorÐand public service-related activities (e.g. law,

266 GOH AND YU


politics)Ðthe core of the Public factorÐhave been viewed by the Chinese astwo distinctive types of work environment. Finally, the absence of theConventional theme on the SII-Chinese suggests that basic interests (e.g.data management, office services, etc.) essential to this SII generaloccupational theme have not been sufficiently developed and formed intoa broad category in its own right in China. Nevertheless, it would bereasonable to speculate that these work interests and activities maygradually evolve into a discrete occupational theme as time goes on andas the Chinese society and economy become more industrialised. Overall,we believe the factor analysis findings provide empirical support for theconstruct validity of the SII-Chinese. And the six-factor model offers anempirically based and culturally relevant framework in understanding careerinterests of the Chinese.

In conclusion, the present data strongly suggest that the Strong InterestInventory is a viable candidate for adaptation and use in China. In themeantime, we note the preliminary and tentative nature of the presentfindings due to the small samples used in the study. Future research withlarger samples is needed to cross-validate these findings as well as to clarifysome unresolved issues. For example, future research may further adapt theSII-Chinese to better fit the Chinese culture by excluding the small numberof items which are considered irrelevant and add to it relevant items that areprevalent in China. We hope the present work has laid some useful ground-work in adapting the SII for use in China and that it may also serve as animpetus for generating more research in developing theories and technol-ogies of vocational assessment which are culturally relevant to the Chineseworld of work.

REFERENCES

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Brislin, R.W., Lonner, W.J., & Thorndike, R.M. (1973). Cross-cultural research

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Cruz, B.S. (1957). The development of Filipino norms on the Strong VocationalInterest Blank for Men (revised). Unpublished master's thesis, Manual L. QuezonEducational Institution, Republic of Philippines.

Fouad, N.A. (1993). Cross-cultural vocational assessment. The Career DevelopmentQuarterly, 42, 13.

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translation and validation of the chinese form of the strong interest inventory

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