The following message about collaborative research comes from Prof. Dale Hample at the University of Maryland:
“Hello. Several of us here at Univ Maryland are getting involved in some large scale international collaborations and an immediate problem is moving our standard English instrumentation into other languages. We will do it, of course, but I think it’s problematic that we don’t have a community repository of such instruments. I am willing to put one on the web, and so I’m soliciting contributions.
Our own most immediate need is for versions of the argumentativeness and verbal aggressiveness scales in Chinese and Spanish. We’re particularly interested in instruments bearing on arguing, conflict, cultural variables (self-construals, etc.), and interpersonal measures. However, we’ll put up any instruments of general interest to communication researchers.
Ideally, we’d like this material:
1. A copy of the non-English instrument, along with an indication of what English language instrument it corresponds to (perhaps with a citation).
2. Please identify not only the language but also the country it was developed for, if possible (e.g., Spanish phrasing might be pretty different in Spain and Guatemala).
3. An indication of whether the instrument was back-translated, or merely translated. Or an indication that the instrument was newly developed in that non-English speaking country. (I assume that the accompanying papers will describe the translation/development methodology; if not, please summarize it.) 4. Copies of any unpublished papers that made use of the instrument, and either copies of or citations to any published papers that used it.
5. The formal name of whoever did the work, so that you (or someone
else) can be properly credited.
6. Contact information for the researchers in case people want to correspond.
I suspect that there are many instruments in the appendices of theses and dissertations, or buried on hard drives. Please hunt around. We’ll put up scans and pdfs if you can’t get materials into MS Word.
If you know of an instrument that has been published elsewhere, just send us the citation.”
Dale Hample
dhample@umd.edu
Dept. Communication
Univ. Maryland
College Park MD 20742
Originally published to CRTNET, on June 1, 2011.
