This section received more feedback than any other did, and it was fairly consistent across participants. This participant summarised the ROLES feedback succinctly,
Mostly it is the use of words to describe specific environments . . . which
are conceptually USA - but if these are changed, the scale would be
useable.
Participants did not know what many of the living environments listed actually were, for example "Residential Job Carp/Vocational Center" or "Group Emergency Shelter". Others were recognised, but a local term was suggested as a replacement. These included replacing "Jail" with "Prison", "Dormitory" with "Boarding School", "I ndependent living with a friend" with "Fiatting", "Group home" with "CYF home", and "Juvenile Detention Center" with "Youth Justice Facility". A number of participants queried the meaning of a school detention in the USA, as the wording "days in detention" implied much longer punishment than the 1 5-30 minutes reported as typical for New Zealand schools. To be more inclusive of Maori and Pasifika communities, new living environments were proposed as possible additions. These included "whangai", "living with grandparents/koro/kuia", and "home of relative/whanau".
Hopefulness and Satisfaction scale items
I n place of the ROLES section , these two scales are included on the Parent and Youth forms, so feedback for these scales was only asked of these two groups. No participants provided feedback related to New Zealand appropriateness, but one suggestion was to use the term "hopeful" rather than "optimistic".
Functioning scale items
A number of Worker comments about this scale were concerns about possible double barrelled questions. Upon examination of the items mentioned, these concerns appeared based on the use of the word "and" in the item, despite the two parts of the item being conceptually related. For example, although "concentrating , paying attention, and finishing tasks" contains three parts, they all contribute to a rating of the same concept. A true double-barrelled question would tap separate concepts; such as "feeling in a low or anxious mood, or troubled by fears, obsessions or rituals" (Item 9, HoNOS-CA) .
Term inology not u sed in New Zealand was identified by Worker and Parent participants. "Chores" and "passing grades in school" were frequently cited.
CHAPTER 10 -STUDY SIX: lNFORMANf FEEDBACK ON THE APPROPRIATENESS OF THE OHIO SCALES 166
Alternatives offered were, "jobs", "jobs around the house", or "cleaning room and other jobs", and "coping with classes", "satisfactory achievement", "making progress in class", or "passing subjects". One Youth participant also suggested, "Doing jobs". There was a suggestion to change "principal" to "headmaster/mistress" and a parent wondered if the item about dating and romantic relationships was less "the norm" for New Zealand teenagers than in the USA. One Youth offered an alternative wording for this item : " . . . going out with boyfriends or girlfriends."
The remaining feedback was regarding the examples of hobbies and recreational activities. Almost every participant suggested removing "baseball cards". Alternatives such as, "art, music, collecting", "rugby cards", "Weet-Bix cards", "Pokemon cards", "reading, music, craft", and "computer games", were offered. Two Parent participants commented,
The whole hobby thing seemed like something from the 50s! All about collecting things!
I know this isn 't what you asked but the hobbies and recreational stuff are kind of male! Where is dancing? Or gym ?
lt was suggested that specific sports could be listed, such as rugby or soccer. Finally an additional item was suggested, "Participating in c ultural activities", although another participant mentioned incorporating Maori examples of hobbies/recreational activities into the existing items, such as Kapa Haka.
Bicultural appropriateness
Almost all participants suggested slight changes or additions should be made to suit New Zealand's bicultural context, although one felt this was not as necessary for the Worker form as for the Parent and Youth forms. Most often, the feedback was to add the equivalent Maori term , e.g . , whanau/family, tama riki/child, kura/school. A number of Worker and Parent participants suggested offering a Te Reo Maori version of the measure, and one participant thought there was room to incorporate the ideas and language from Te Whare Tapa Wha. One of the young people mentioned using "simple Maori words that all New Zealanders know, such as 'Kia ora' etc."
General feedback
CHAPTER 10 -STUDY SIX: INFORMANf FEEDBACK ON THE APPROPRIATENESS OF THE OHIO SCALES 167
preferred "Difficulties" and "Issues", respectively. The use of "Ohio" in the title was questioned by one Worker, who felt it conveyed a sense of foreign-ness. One Youth thought the form was easy to understand and one predicted that students would lie on some questions. A number of Parents and Youth felt that the measure did not need changes to New Zealand English, although one queried the suitability of the reading age required for the Parent form.
Summary
Twenty-four clinicians, parents, and young people supplied feedback about the appropriateness of the langu age and concepts of the Ohio Scales for New Zealand. There were strong themes in the feedback about wording that should be altered (such as, "chores", "curfew", school "grade", "race"), although the measure appeared to be conceptually acceptable to participants. Most suggestions were to alter a single word to its familiar New Zealand equivalent. The ROLES section of the Worker form received the most feedback and appeared to require the most substantial modification. Many of the terms referred to services/settings that either do not exist in New Zealand or exist in quite a different form. Uncertainty about the meaning of many terms in this section was frequently expressed by participants, so it seems that this scale requires substantial modification before it could be used in New Zealand.
Of Van de Vijver and Hambleton's (1 996) three possible decisions, it was predicted that the feedback would indicate a decision to either apply or adapt the Ohio Scales for New Zealand use. In fact, the results of this study indicated both are necessary. For the ROLES section of the Worker form, adaptation and New Zealand validation is necessary, as the terminology of the scale was clearly not understood by participants. However, this is an independent scale, so could be removed from the Worker form altogether without affecting the Ohio Scales proper. Fortunately, the rest of the measure did not suffer such difficulties. The feedback indicated only m inor rewording was required. Based on the findings of this study, the measure could be applied here in a very similar form to the original.
Although a convenience sample was used in this research, the views of the participants were highly convergent, so the sampling method may not have impacted on the findings. As Geisinger ( 1 994) had recommended, a group familiar with the New Zealand context, psychometric testing, and psychosocial issues for young people was
CHAPTER 10 -STUDY SIX: INFORMANf FEEDBACK ON THE APPROPRIATENESS OF THE OHIO SCALES 168
recruited. However, all Workers had a background in clinical psychology and practitioners in other disciplines (e.g., social work or nursing) might have given different feedback. In particular, this limitation might apply to the ROLES section . Perhaps m any of the services/settings mentioned would have been familiar to professions other than psychology. Although a number of participants were Maori, no separate analysis of their responses was made and therefore, no conclusions were drawn about the appropriateness of the measu re for Maori. This would be a critical futu re research project, particularly if the measure was to be considered for use with predominantly Maori clients or services working from Kaupapa Maori perspectives.
In line with copyright legislation , the Ohio Scales (and the ROLES) cannot be altered or adapted without permission. Even though no major adaptation is necessary, adding an organisation logo or making m inor changes to the measure (such as New Zealand spellings or adding words in Te Reo Maori) would breach copyright. The next step wou ld be to seek permission from the copyright holder to make alterations as suggested by the results of this research.
Once permission to make changes was obtained, an initial New Zealand version could be drafted. Geisinger ( 1 994) suggested an editorial review of the initial draft be undertaken where independent reviewers individually make comments regarding the changed items/sections, which are then shared amongst the reviewers, discussed, and a consensus reached about what needs adjusting (if anything). If the ROLES section was adapted, a similar process wou ld be followed, however care should be taken to retain the original meanings of items, so as not to spoil the conceptual underpinnings of the measure. The measurement equivalence of the original and adapted items and their effect on the measure as a whole and its psychometric properties should also be investigated (see Robert, Lee, & Chan, 2006).
In addition to the development of a New Zealand appropriate version of the Ohio Scales, future research could look at drafting and testing a Te Reo Maori version. This wou ld require extensive consultation , piloting, and evaluation , but would strengthen the usability of the measure in both mainstream and Kaupapa Maori child and adolescent mental health services.
As predicted, the results of this research indicated the Ohio Scales could be applied for use in New Zealand with only m inor wording changes that do not compromise the meaning of items or structure of the measure. The inclusion of the ROLES section was
CHAPTER 10 -STUDY SIX: lNFORMANf FEEDBACK ON THE APPROPRIATENESS OF THE OHIO SCALES 169
not supported however, and further adaptation of this scale is recommended before it is used by services here.
CHAPTER 11-SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION 170