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Using an interpreter in qualitative interviews: Does it threaten validity?
Department of Nursing Science, Univ. College of Health Sciences, Jönköping, Sweden, Univ. College of Health Sciences, Box 1038, SE-551 11 Jönköping, Sweden.
Linköping University, Faculty of Health Sciences. Linköping University, Department of Medicine and Health Sciences, Nursing Science.ORCID iD: 0000-0003-1588-135X
2002 (English)In: Nursing Inquiry, ISSN 1320-7881, E-ISSN 1440-1800, Vol. 9, no 1, p. 52-56Article in journal (Refereed) Published
Abstract [en]

There is an extensive literature on the problem of translating scales for use across cultures, but very little is published on the problems of conducting qualitative interviews in another language with assistance of an interpreter. The aim of this paper is to describe and discuss threats to validity that arise when conducting qualitative interviews using an interpreter. Ten female student nurses in two cities in Lithuania were interviewed about how they perceived their educational program. All interviews were conducted in English with an interpreter. When using an interpreter to conduct interviews, potential threats to validity arise at various points in the interview process. A threat arises when the researcher, whose first language is Swedish, addresses a question in English to the interpreter, another during the translation by the interpreter from English to Lithuanian, and again when the interpreter translates the interviewee's Lithuanian responses to English. In the last situation, the researcher may not know whether the interpreter has summarized and/or modified the responses. To mitigate these problems, the interpreter should not only have the required linguistic abilities, but also be trained in the research field. The researcher has to be aware of these threats to validity and make efforts to meet and limit their effects.

Place, publisher, year, edition, pages
2002. Vol. 9, no 1, p. 52-56
Keywords [en]
Interpreter, Qualitative interviews, Threats to validity, Validity
National Category
Medical and Health Sciences
Identifiers
URN: urn:nbn:se:liu:diva-46810DOI: 10.1046/j.1440-1800.2002.00127.xOAI: oai:DiVA.org:liu-46810DiVA, id: diva2:267706
Available from: 2009-10-11 Created: 2009-10-11 Last updated: 2017-12-13

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Berterö, Carina

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CiteExportLink to record
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Citation style
  • apa
  • ieee
  • modern-language-association-8th-edition
  • vancouver
  • oxford
  • Other style
More styles
Language
  • de-DE
  • en-GB
  • en-US
  • fi-FI
  • nn-NO
  • nn-NB
  • sv-SE
  • Other locale
More languages
Output format
  • html
  • text
  • asciidoc
  • rtf