Bringing human rights to social work: Validating culturally appropriate instruments to measure rights-based practice in Spain

Abstract

This article describes the Spanish-language translation and cross-cultural validation of two scales – Human Rights Engagement in Social Work and Human Rights Exposure in Social Work. These scales, measuring human rights awareness and commitment among social workers, were first validated in the United States. In this study, the scales were translated and adapted for the Spanish political and cultural context, and then validated in a sample of 498 social work students at three universities in Spain. The process produced two valid and reliable Spanish-language measures to explore human rights awareness and commitment in social work.

Keywords

Cross-cultural validation human rights measurement social work education social work ethics Spain translation

Introduction

Human rights have been an implicit (though often unstated) concern of social work since the origins of the profession (Healy, 2008). Today, human rights are part of the mission of the social work profession and constitute one of its central ethical orientations. Indeed, the International Federation of Social Workers (IFSW) and the International Association of Schools of Social Work (IASSW) include human rights in their joint definition of social work and assert that the values of human rights and social justice are fundamental to the profession (IFSW, 2015). The United Nations (UN) echoes the importance of social work, which it identifies as a crucial profession for the protection and promotion of human rights (Centre for Human Rights, 1994).

To practice ethically, social workers must be conscious of the deep resonance between social work and human rights, and incorporate the human rights framework into their education and into daily use in all areas of practice. The social work literature shows increasing efforts to analyze professional practice in diverse areas from the perspective of human rights, and to highlight the leadership that social work professionals will have in this area in the future (Chen et al., 2015; Hawkins and Knox, 2014; McPherson, 2015; Steen et al., 2016). Nevertheless, despite the importance of human rights to our profession, Spanish universities do not include human rights as an obligatory subject in their academic social work programs (Mercado et al., 2016). This lack of rights-based course content raises questions about whether Spanish social work students are knowledgeable about human rights and whether they understand social work practice within a human rights framework.

Commitment to and awareness of human rights in social work

Scholars in several fields have measured human rights attitudes (Cohrs et al., 2007; McFarland and Mathews, 2005; Stellmacher et al., 2005; Torney-Purta et al., 2008). Perhaps the most significant effort to measure support for human rights in a general audience is the Human Rights Questionnaire (HRQ), which measures endorsement of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) principles (Diaz-Veizades et al., 1995). Within the field of social work specifically, only four scales have been developed to measure human rights-related knowledge, attitudes, perspectives, and practices (McPherson and Abell, 2012; McPherson et al., 2017).

For this study, the authors chose to translate and validate two of these social work-specific scales – Human Rights Exposure in Social Work (HRXSW) and Human Rights Engagement in Social Work (HRESW) (McPherson and Abell, 2012). The HRXSW was developed specifically to measure social work students’ knowledge of and exposure to human rights, while the HRESW addresses whether students understand social work practice within a human rights framework. In addition, since their initial validation, scholars have successfully used these in scales in social work research with both students and professionals in the United States and beyond (Chen and Tang, 2017; Kwon et al., 2017; McPherson and Cheatham, 2015).

The HRXSW and the HRESW were both initially validated as unidimensional scales. The HRXSW scale comprises 11 items and was developed to measure familiarity with human rights principles and concerns. The HRESW scale (25 items) measures engagement with human rights in three ways: (1) endorsement of human rights ideas, (2) perceived relevance of human rights to social work practice, and (3) application of human rights in social work practice (McPherson and Abell, 2012). Both scales were initially validated in a sample of 287 US social work students.

Currently, Spanish scholarship provides limited information on human rights knowledge and engagement within Spanish social workers and social work students (Cubillos-Vega, 2017). The present study addresses this gap and provides researchers and educators with new tools through the translation, adaptation, and validation of Spanish-language versions of the HRXSW and HRESW scales. The validation was carried out in stages: (1) forward and back translation from English into Spanish, followed by the adjustment of the translated scales to the Spanish political and cultural context; (2) evaluation of the linguistic and typographical legibility of the new Spanish-language scales; (3) pilot testing; and (4) validation of the instruments for reliability and internal consistency using survey research methods.

Methodology

Translation and cultural adjustment to a Spanish context

The HRESW and HRXSW scales were developed in English and within the US political and cultural context. Therefore, in order for the scales to be ‘translated’ for use in Spain, the scales needed to be both (1) translated into the Spanish language and (2) adjusted for the Spanish political and cultural context.

Forward and back translation

The translation of both scales was carried out through a method of direct and inverse translation, known as forward and back translation (Cha et al., 2007; Hernández et al., 2010; Tran, 2009). To complete this process, native Spanish-speaking researchers translated the original versions of both scales into Spanish; then a native English-speaking researcher translated the scales back into English with the help of two bilingual, bicultural US citizens of Latino origin. Discrepancies were identified and discussed by the multinational research team via videoconference, and details of the Spanish-language scales were finalized.

The most troubling item to translate was Item 3 of the HRESW, relating to the high rate of incarceration among Black men in the United States. Disproportionate incarceration of Black men is not a problem in Spain, yet the overall human rights issue embedded within the item – discriminatory treatment of minority community members – is relevant in the Spanish context. For the Spanish scale, the research team chose to focus on a parallel form of structural violence and inequality suffered by an ethnic minority in Spain (Galtung, 1969, 1990; Saba, 2012). After consulting experts and national statistical information, we determined that Gypsy women experience a triple dose of marginalization, based on their gender, ethnicity, and social class (Equipo Barañí, 2001). Thus, the disproportionate rate of incarceration among Gypsy women in Spain was chosen as the closest parallel to the intent of the original item.

In the HRXSW scale, two items were incompatible in the Spanish context: Item 3 originally asks participants to assess how their formal education covered US-based human rights violations, while Item 11 asks about the National Association of Social Workers’ endorsement of the UDHR. Both items were modified slightly to reflect the Spanish context without changing their essential meaning (see Appendix 1).

Other small changes were made in the adaptation process. The research team decided that the literal translation of ‘exposure’ in the title of the HRXSW scale did not convey the intended meaning; instead, we determined that nociones – a Spanish word meaning ‘ideas’ – would do a better job of describing the content of the Spanish-language HRXSW scale. Another word that was changed throughout was ‘client’. Although ‘client’ is in common usage in the United States, in Spain, cliente has a mercantilist connotation, and persona usuaria (service user) is more commonly used to describe a person seeking social services.

Other changes were made to use inclusive, non-sexist language that specifically and explicitly includes women, for example by using neutral nouns (e.g. amistades instead of amigos) and both female and male versions of gendered nouns (e.g. trabajador/a social). A further change was made to shift verb use from past to future tense because using past tense for verbs describing social work practice was not appropriate for use with students who lack professional experience. Using the future tense also necessitated adapting the instructions to explain that these questions were focusing on hypothetical situations.

Finally, we were concerned that some of the items on the Nociones de Derechos Humanos en Trabajo Social (NDHTS) scale would produce dichotomous answers rather than answers that would vary across a 7-point Likert-type scale, as was used in the original scale (e.g. Item 1). Therefore, six additional items were added to allow an expanded scope of findings. All changes were determined to be in line with the original intent of the HRXSW. Similarly, we eliminated Item 10 (‘I am aware that the United Nations has a role in monitoring international human rights’), as knowledge of this item was expected to be nearly universal in the European context. The resultant scale (NDHTS) was composed of 16 items (see Appendix 1).

After translation and adaptation, this study proposed to validate two scales: Compromiso con los Derechos Humanos en Trabajo Social (CDHTS), the Spanish-language HRESW (see Appendix 1), and NDHTS, the Spanish-language HRXSW (see Appendix 2).

Linguistic and typographical legibility

A key element in the comprehensibility of a text is its legibility. Legible texts deploy typographical elements, style, clarity of presentation, and word choice in a manner that maximizes likelihood of comprehension by the reader. Legibility of a text should be adapted to and verified by the intended audience, in this case social work students (Barrio-Cantalejo et al., 2008; Belart, 2004).

INFLESZ software (Barrio-Cantalejo et al., 2008) evaluates Spanish-language text using the Flesch-Szigriszt Index (IFZS; Barrio-Cantalejo et al., 2008). Legibility analysis of the NDHTS and CDHTS was carried out in two stages: first, every paragraph was evaluated for degree of difficulty, and then researchers analyzed the questionnaire to verify the comprehensibility of the document as a whole. According to this analysis, as shown in Table 1, the results confirmed that the scales are appropriate for use in a college-level student sample (IFZS: 64.56).

Table 1.

Analysis of legibility of the final questionnaire.

Syllables	3.114
Words	1.453
Sentences	166
Average syllables/word	2.14
Average words/sentence	8.75
Flesch-Szigriszt Index	64.56
Degree in Inflesz Scale	Normal^a
Fernández Huerta Index	69.32

Over 55–65 points: corresponding to high school (senior), press, and sporting press.

Pilot test of the Spanish version: Acceptability and viability

During the fall semester of 2015, we recruited a small group of second-year Spanish social work students (N = 50) to pilot test a survey consisting of the NDHTS, the CDHTS, and a number of demographic questions. Social work students were chosen for the pilot because they were the intended audience for the survey and therefore were considered good proxies for social work students who would later participate in the study. Participation in the pilot study was voluntary, and students were recruited during class. Participants reported understanding the meaning of the questions very well. One student questioned Item 3 of the CDHTS, but as the query was posed by a single student and did not address the construct being measured, the item was not modified. Students reported understanding the instructions and declared no concerns about spelling or orthography. In response to the pilot survey, the research team altered a few socio-demographic questions.

Sample

The survey was administered to 498 first-year undergraduate social work students at three universities in three regions of Spain: Universidad de Castilla La Mancha (n = 30), Universidad Complutense de Madrid (n = 374), and Universidad de Murcia (n = 94). The choice of these universities resulted from an opportunity criterion, taking advantage of the institutional collaboration between public universities for research.

In the field of factor analysis, there is no clear consensus for guidelines about sample size, although there is broad agreement that larger samples provide more precise estimates of factor loadings (MacCallum et al., 1999). The literature provides several ways to determine a ‘large’ sample size. Some scholars suggest that the sample should include 5–10 participants per item in a proposed new scale (cf. Abell et al., 2009; MacCallum et al., 1999; Nunnally and Bernstein, 1994). Given that there were two scales to be validated in this study and that the larger of the scales – the CDHTS – comprised 25 items, this would suggest a necessary sample size of 125–250 for an exploratory factor analysis (EFA) to be run. Others have suggested that smaller samples of 200 (Jackson, 2003) or 300 (Field, 2009; Kahn, 2006) are sufficient for factor analysis (Abell et al., 2009; Myers et al., 2011).

After removing 23 cases with missing data in critical variables, a final sample of 475 valid cases was obtained, more than enough for valid factor analysis. Of these, 82.1 percent were women – a proportion that reflects the feminization of our profession – and 95 percent were of Spanish origin. Participants ranged in age from 18 to 22 years. Once collected, the data were entered into The IBM SPSS statistics program, version 22. The data were then cleaned and tested for internal validity using Cronbach’s alpha prior to factor analysis.

Results

Reliability

In order to replicate the validation process of the original scales, we used Cronbach’s alpha coefficient to assess reliability. In the initial analysis, the NDHTS scale obtained an alpha of 0.803 (slightly higher than the original US alpha of 0.734), and the CDHTS scored an alpha of 0.856 (slightly lower that original US score of 0.894). Next, we calculated the values of alpha if items were deleted from the scale. It is notable that the new NDHTS items (Items 2, 4, 9, 10, 14 and 16) did not alter the reliability of the scales (see Table 2). In both scales, items were identified that could have improved scale reliability if they were deleted. However, the potential gains were so small that no items were deleted.

Table 2.

Cronbach’s alpha of NDHTS scale.

Reliabilities (Cronbach’s alpha) for the NDTHS item set prior to factor analysis (alpha if item deleted)
P. 1	0.793
P. 2	0.784
P. 3	0.803
P. 4	0.798
P. 5	0.801
P. 6	0.800
P. 7	0.797
P. 8	0.791
P. 9	0.782
P. 10	0.785
P. 11	0.799
P. 12^a	0.805
P. 13	0.789
P. 14	0.783
P. 15	0.791
P. 16	0.778

NDHTS: Nociones de Derechos Humanos en Trabajo Social.

Item 12 was identified as having the potential to raise the scale reliability if deleted (from 0.803 to 0.805).

Factor analysis

EFA was used to analyze the items of both scales in order to verify that their components were placed in the correct dimension associated with each scale (Ferrán, 2001). For the NDHTS, we chose to focus on the 10 items that appeared in the original scale, and the EFA largely confirmed the factor structure of the original study (McPherson and Abell, 2012). Looking closely at the results, however, it appears that the EFA suggests a second factor or principal components with oblimin rotation. Four of the NDHTS items (Items 3, 5, 6, and 7) factor together in a manner that suggests potential multidimensionality in the Spanish-language scale (see Figure 1). Items that diverged were the following: Item 3 (My social work curriculum covered the Universal Declaration of Human Rights), Item 5 (My education covered human rights violations that happen in Spain), Item 6 (My coursework covered international human rights issues), and Item 7 (Social work has been a good way for me to learn about human rights). These results suggest that the Spanish-language NDHTS may be multidimensional: one group of items seems to measure exposure to human rights during educational training, while the majority of the items relate to learning or awareness of human rights acquired in daily life.

Figure 1.

Component plot in rotated space (with oblimin rotation) NDHTS scale.

Finally, since this study incorporated new items into the NDHTS, we completed an additional EFA analysis with the new questions (see Appendix 1). The new items, except for Item 4 (Social work education trains students to know and advocate for human rights), factored with the item set measuring awareness of human rights acquired in daily life (see Figure 2).

Figure 2.

Component plot in rotated space (with oblimin rotation) NDHTS scale complete.

This preliminary analysis suggests that the NDHTS scale may be composed of two aspects related to exposure to human rights, one that measures awareness acquired in daily life (Items 1, 2, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, and 16) and another that measures awareness acquired by professional training (Items 3, 4, 5, 6, and 7) (Appendix 1). Still, for the purposes of this initial validation, we have chosen to validate both the CDHTS and the NDHTS as unidimensional scales.

Conclusion

In view of the importance of human rights to the social work profession, as well as the prevalence of human rights violations around the world, it is increasingly important to have reliable instruments enabling us to monitor human rights awareness and attitudes within the social work profession. Such a need is undeniable, given the close relation that exists between social work and human rights, even from the beginning of the profession. In the context of globalization, this relationship is acquiring even greater validity. Human rights knowledge and engagement are critical to the social work field, and the HRXSW and HRESW are the only social work-specific scales that measure these constructs. Translating these scales into Spanish has the potential to promote dialogue about human rights and social work across linguistic and cultural barriers.

Specifically, this study presents two new valid tools, the NDHTS and the CDHTS, which can be used by researchers and educators in Spain to measure these critical rights-based constructs within the Spanish context. Spanish is the second most widely spoken language in the world, currently spoken in 31 countries by 427 million speakers (Lewis et al., 2016). Although the current translation is specific to the cultural context of Spain, it can be adapted easily for use in Spanish-speaking Latin America and beyond. In future translations of the HRXSW, researchers should reference the appropriate country in Item 10 and the correct national social work organization in Item 15. When translating the HRESW, Item 3 challenges researchers to select a population that experiences discrimination and social exclusion.

This article has demonstrated a process of translation, cultural adjustment, and validation of the HRXSW and HRESW instruments, which can be adapted by other researchers and educators who wish to measure these constructs in their own countries. This process can serve as a template for the adaptation of psychometric instruments beyond their initial cultural and linguistic contexts.

The results of this investigation indicate that the Spanish NDHTS and CDHTS scales constitute trustworthy and valid instruments to measure human rights knowledge commitment among social work students in Spain. These instruments can be used to measure point-in-time exposure and awareness; they may also be used to evaluate educational interventions that seek to increase students’ human rights commitments through the use of pre-tests and post-tests. In this way, these scales can contribute empirical evidence to promote the incorporation of human rights in social work professional training.

In the Spanish context, future studies should measure the human rights exposure and engagement of professional Spanish social workers. Future studies will allow researchers to compare Spanish social work professionals with Spanish social work students, as well as Spanish professionals and students with their peers in other countries where similar scales have been validated. Translations of the HRESW and HRXSW are currently underway or complete in China, Portugal, Croatia, Albania, Kosovo, and Bosnia-Herzogovina, and each of these translations opens doors for researchers to understand human rights and social work across national and cultural boundaries.

Limitations

The results of this study allowed us to establish that, in a global sense, there is alignment between the Spanish translations and the results of the original validation (McPherson and Abell, 2012). The analysis has replicated the statistical tests applied in the original study and has in turn replicated those results both in the alpha values and in the factors found. However, although both scales, the NDHTS and CDHTS, actually consist of the dimensions of ‘awareness’ and ‘commitment’, respectively, we have observed that the dimension of ‘awareness’ could be divided into two separate, closely linked sub-dimensions. Thus, although both scales are currently unidimensional, we observed that there is a group of items in the NDHTS scale that tends to separate from the main group of items (as shaped by awareness that is acquired in daily life), delineating a second group (as shaped by awareness from professional and/or academic training). Despite these appraisals, we determined that this issue should be pursued in future studies. Future studies may determine the final number of dimensions within this Spanish-language scale and whether these elements should be differentiated, as well as whether the scale would perform better if divided into subscales.

Footnotes

Appendix 1

Appendix 2 Acknowledgements

We thank the following scholars for collaboration with this project: M. Isabel Martín-Estalayo, Gregoria Hernández, M. Victoria de las Heras, Esther Mercado, Enrique Pastor, Andrés Arias, Blanca Rodríguez, and Elena Roldán. In addition, we thank Vania Llovera and Wendi Adelson, J.D., who provided important assistance in translating the scales.

Funding

This work was supported by the ‘Program a Formación de Capital Humano Avanzado CONICYT’, Chile Scholarship for PhD.

ORCID iDs

Carla Cubillos Vega

Jane McPherson

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