Using Cognitive Interviewing for the Semantic Enhancement of Multilingual Versions of Personality Questionnaires

We discuss the use of cognitive interviewing with bilinguals as an integral part of cross-cultural adaptation of personality questionnaires. The aim is to maximize semantic equivalence to increase the likelihood of items maintaining the intended structure and meaning in the target language. We refer to this part of adaptation as semantic enhancement, and integrate cognitive interviewing within it as a tool for scrutinizing translations, the connotative meaning, and the psychological impact of items across languages. During the adaptation of a work-based personality questionnaire from English to Arabic, Chinese (Mandarin), and Spanish, we cognitively interviewed 12 bilingual participants about 136 items in different languages (17% of all items), of which 67 were changed. A content analysis categorizing the reasons for amending items elicited 11 errors that affect 2 identified forms of semantic equivalence. We provide the resultant coding scheme as a framework for designing cognitive interviewing protocols and propose a procedure for implementing them. We discuss implications for theory and practice.     

African elephants can detect water from natural and artificial sources via olfactory cues

Animal Cognition - Water is vital for mammals. Yet, as ephemeral sources can be difficult to find, it raises the question, how do mammals locate water? Elephants (Loxodonta africana) are...     

Work–Life Balance in the Police: The Development of a Self-Management Competency Framework

Purpose

Addressing a gap in the current work–life balance (WLB) literature regarding individual-focused approaches to inform interventions, we elicited behaviors used to self-manage WLB to draw up a competency-based WLB framework for relevant learnable knowledge, skills, and abilities (KSAs; Hoffmann, Eur J Ind Train 23:275–285, 1999) and mapping this against extant WLB frameworks.

Design/Methodology/Approach

Our participants were from a major UK police force, which faces particular challenges to the work–life interface through job demands and organizational cutbacks, covering a range of operational job roles, including uniformed officers and civilian staff. We took a mixed methods approach starting with semi-structured interviews to elicit 134 distinct behaviors (n = 20) and used a subsequent card sort task (n = 10) to group these into categories into 12 behavioral themes; and finally undertook an online survey (n = 356) for an initial validation.

Findings

Item and content analysis reduced the behaviors to 58, which we analyzed further. A framework of eight competencies fits the data best; covering a range of strategies, including Boundary Management, Managing Flexibility, and Managing Expectations.

Implications

The WLB self-management KSAs elicited consist of a range of solution-focused behaviors and strategies, which could inform future WLB-focused interventions, showing how individuals may negotiate borders effectively in a specific environment.

Originality/Value

A competence-based approach to WLB self-management is new, and may extend existing frameworks such as Border Theory, highlighting a proactive and solution-focused element of effective behaviors.