The development of an acculturation measure for Chinese-Americans

The problem. The Chinese represent the largest Asian group in the United States. The research on Chinese-Americans indicates a number of difficulties related to their acculturation in the United States and the importance in assessing level of acculturation for clinical and educational settings with Chinese. The Asian acculturation scale which surfaced in the literature did not distinguish among ethnic groups and was in English, thereby eliminating the assessment of non-English speaking individuals. The purpose of this research study was to develop a specific acculturation scale for Chinese-Americans that was available in Chinese and English.;Method. Seventy-seven initial items were developed through discussion with various Chinese experts. Typical Chinese-American responses were compared with typical non-Chinese-American responses and were modified accordingly. Chinese judges selected according to specific criteria rated the seventy-seven items for content according to five dimensions identified by Padilla and three additional dimensions. Judges rated responses to each test item in terms of high, moderate or low acculturation level. Also, bicultural responses were identified. The judges eliminated one item and the remaining seventy-six items underwent item-discrimination analysis using an extreme groups method and the Chi-square statistic. Two groups of Chinese-Americans rated as either high or low in acculturated by the judges served as the subjects. Forty-five items were retained. A demographic questionnaire and the Bicultural Involvement Scale were administered to 150 Chinese-Americans who had been previously rated by the judges in the study for acculturation level.;Results. The Chinese-American acculturation scale developed in this study was found to yield similar results regardless of whether the Chinese or English version was administered. Internal consistency of the scale was very high as measured by Cronbach's coefficient alpha. Discriminate function analysis was able to classify over 95% of the 150 cases correctly based on total score and as rated for acculturation level by the judges in the study giving high concurrent validity.