Content validation of the JAAT: an aphasia assessment designed for Jordanian-Arabic speaking population
- UNCG Author/Contributor (non-UNCG co-authors, if there are any, appear on document)
- Fadi Y. AlSwaiti (Creator)
- Institution
- The University of North Carolina at Greensboro (UNCG )
- Web Site: http://library.uncg.edu/
- Advisor
- Robert Mayo
Abstract: Aphasia has significant consequences on communication in activities of daily living and comprehensive aphasia assessments are an important clinical tool for gathering diagnostic and treatment information. A comprehensive aphasia assessment is still the most used tool utilized when the aim is to collect as much clinically useful information as possible using one single test. Despite the availability of several major comprehensive aphasia tests for the English-speaking population, there are only a few comprehensive tests that have been developed for the majority of the world’s popular languages including Arabic (Ivanova & Hallowell, 2013). Clinicians in Jordan are challenged by the lack of availability of a formal aphasia test for people with aphasia (PWA) speaking a Jordanian dialect of Arabic. The aim of this study was to examine the content validity of a newly developed Jordanian-Arabic Aphasia Test (JAAT) by formulating an experimental process of content validation. The study consisted of three experiments: the first experiment aims to validate the visual stimuli used in the JAAT; the second to identify troublesome in need of modification; and the third is an examination of content validity of the JAAT. The JAAT consists of 12 subtests divided into four parts with a total of 112 items that assess verbal fluency, auditory comprehension, repetition, and naming. For the first experiment, 164 non-brain damaged (NBD) Jordanian-Arabic speakers distributed by age, sex, and level of education were asked to match 132 pictures with target words to determine whether the images accurately represent the words they were drawn to depict. In the second experiment the JAAT was administered to 20 NBD Jordanian Arabic speakers who were 60 years of age or more to identify item outliers that are less than ideal for use with PWA. As for the third experiment and the focus of this study, 21 subject matter experts (SME) in the field of speech-language pathology were asked to rate the JAAT using an online questionnaire. The content of the JAAT was appraised using three parameters—clinical applicability, linguistic relevance, and cultural sensitivity. Furthermore, a Content Validity Index (CVI) with a criterion set for 80% was used based on ratings of 7 or 6 indicating response choices of strongly agree and agree respectively on the online questionnaire. Results of the first experiment demonstrated that the majority of the items in the JAAT were validated by NBD Jordanian Arabic speakers and found to accurately represent the target words. In the second experiment, as expected, senior Jordanian-Arabic speakers performed correctly on most items of the JAAT; with 8 items shown to be difficult for more than one-fourth of examinees. These items were modified before being readmitted in the JAAT for content validation. Results of the third experiment showed that the SMEs rated the JAAT’s clinical applicability, linguistic relevance, and cultural sensitivity positively with significant CVI values. Two subtests in the JAAT were found to require further modifications and the test’s capacity to identify other disorders was found to be lacking. Additionally, the JAAT needs to go through some modification to improve its potential to identify severity levels of PWA. The results of this study signal the importance of implementing a scheme of content validation and item development process that paves the way for better test construction practices.
Content validation of the JAAT: an aphasia assessment designed for Jordanian-Arabic speaking population
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Created on 8/1/2019
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Additional Information
- Publication
- Dissertation
- Language: English
- Date: 2019
- Keywords
- Aphasia, Auditory comprehension, Content validity, Speech language pathology, Standardization, Subject matter experts
- Subjects
- Aphasia $x Diagnosis $z Jordan
- Psychological tests $x Validity $z Jordan
- Psychological tests $x Standards $z Jordan