Validity of borrowed questionnaire items: A cross-cultural perspective

Abstract

In support of a country-wide educational reform, the Supreme Education Council created the Qatar National Education Database System. We describe this system and use analytic techniques to tentatively evaluate some aspects of the quality of its scaled attitudinal information. In particular, we stress the importance of developing criteria for ensuring the validity of "borrowed" measures. We also point to the desirability of longitudinal data quality research in the context of a culture in which measurement instruments such as questionnaires have gone from little or no use to a newly familiar feature of the educational landscape.