Translation of Credentialing Examination for Providers with English as a Second Language: An Exploratory Study.

Racial and ethnic minorities disproportionately suffer the burden of adverse health outcomes in the United States. Increasing the diversity of healthcare providers may help decrease disparities in outcomes. Unfortunately, language barriers may affect performance in nursing school and credentialing examinations. The purpose of this exploratory study was to identify current practices and trends affecting the translation of credentialing examinations. Commissioned by the National Board of Certification and Recertification for Nurse Anesthetists, a survey was sent to the credentialing organizations soliciting information about their exam translation practices and considerations. Among the 27 credentialing organizations (two licensure and 25 certification organizations) that completed the survey, 63% were from healthcare. All the organizations offered their credentialing examinations in English. Some offered their examination in Chinese/Mandarin (15%), Spanish (11%), French (7%), and Arabic (7%). The majority (78%) do not translate their examinations into another language. Among the six credentialing organizations translating their examinations, 67% translate one, and 17% translate two examinations. Most use the forward and back-translation techniques. For organizations embarking on a multilingual credentialing program, it is imperative to ensure psychometric equivalence of their examinations. Translation can help ensure that candidates are tested on their intended competencies, not their language proficiency.

[Imagery norms and subjective frequency of 1,760 monosyllabic words in the French language]. / Normes d'imagerie et de fréquence subjective pour 1,760 mots monosyllabiques de la langue française.

This study aimed at providing subjective frequency and imageability norms for a sample of 1,760 monosyllabic French words and thereby, increasing the pool of normative data available for research in cognitive science and language processing. The results indicate that the reliability of the estimates is high, with coefficients ranging between .93 and .99 for the frequency and imageability ratings. External validity was investigated by calculating correlations with ratings drawn from all similar studies and for which the number of shared items was sufficient. These coefficients vary between .73 and .88 for subjective frequency and between .64 and .97 for imageability. The correlation between subjective frequency and imageability in the present study was significant and relatively high (r = .64). The implications of these results for the selection of experimental stimuli for research are discussed.