ABSTRACT
The history of the adaptation of psychological tests started in the first decade of the 20th century with mass testing of immigrants to the US at the Ellis Island immigrant inspection station and with the testing of US Army recruits in preparation for World War I, when psychologists working there recognized the need to use different tests for literate test-takers and those who were illiterate or did not know English. Currently, standards published by the International Test Commission define best practice policies for test adaptation. There are many reasons why direct translation might not be enough to obtain a version of the test in another language that functions equivalently. The sources of the compromised validity of results from adapted tests include cultural differences, technical issues and factors that may influence the validity of results interpretation. When creating different language versions, their contents need not be identical, but the two versions need to be psychologically equivalent. With regard to the level of content overlap, creation of different test versions may follow the approaches of application, adaptation and assembly. Two basic procedures for creating a test version in another language are forward translation and backtranslation, and researchers can also opt for a combination of these two. An even better option for adaptation of an existing test is to simultaneously construct multiple language versions from the start, either by using the etic approach or through a combination of etic and emic approaches.
