The Importance of Cultural Validity

Multicultural and cultural validity are newer concepts that address the role of culture in the evaluation and assessment and thus not routine in analysis. The Structured Trauma-Related Experiences & Symptoms Screener (STRESS), is an instrument used to measure PTSD in children and though it is used to measure PTSD in children from multiple cultures, it was not validated with the various populations.  Thus, when a factorial ANOVA was completed on the STRESS, on refugee and immigrant children participating in the TRYP program, children from Asian countries scored significantly different than children from the rest of the world.  The presentation will explore the analysis and implications.