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Translation of U.S. Educational Level Survey Questions into Spanish: Is Adaptation the Solution?
Patricia Goerman
U.S. Census Bureau
Leticia Fernandez
U.S. Census Bureau
Rosanna Quiroz
RTI International
The difficulty of translating country-specific program names for use in surveys has been well documented. Questions about educational attainment offer a good illustration of this difficulty, particularly amongst Spanish-speaking immigrants in the United States, who come from a variety of countries where education systems are different in both name and structure. This paper presents results from the cognitive testing of Spanish education level questions in the U.S. Census Bureau's American Community Survey. Two iterative rounds of cognitive testing were conducted with 46 Spanish-speaking respondents from 11 different countries. Respondents had differing interpretations of many of the education categories. For example, Mexican-origin respondents interpreted "escuela secundaria," or "high school," to correspond to nine years of schooling, while in the U.S. completing high school corresponds to 12 years of schooling. Similarly, the translation for "bachelor's degree" or "bachiller universitario," was interpreted by some respondents as the equivalent of either junior high or high school. These misinterpretations could result in upward biases in reports of educational levels.