Dear Shakil Ahmed ,

It is widely accepted that translation of a questionnaire instrument from one language to a completely different language requires a revalidation and another reliability analysis. It cannot be assumed that items on a questionnaire will have exactly the same meaning when using a different language and when administered to a different population with a different culture, nor can it be assumed that a collection of such translated questions collectively measure the same scale construct.

You should always check for validation and reliability of an existing instrument. Just because some authors appear to have got away without doing this doesn't mean that you should seek to emulate them.

However, there are many folk misconceptions about reliability analysis relating to Cronbach's alpha, sample sizes and the ideal number of scale items. Please see my study guides for more information.

Comparing results with scales that cross cultural, linguistic, and national boundaries is never certain. It is always a good idea to compare results from a target language to results from the source language to at least establish measurement equivalence/invariance or ME/I. This is a complex issue that we discuss in detail here:Article Methodological and Substantive Issues in Conducting Multinat...

I see that there are three different issues in the question posted.

A) Is it important for a translated scale to undergo the validation process before it can be used in a population that is culturally distinct from the one in which the scale was originally developed, and speaks a different language?

The answers provided above provides an affirmative response to which I concur, together with the reasons they present.

B) What if some of these papers do not show any proper validation process, but they have been published and still online?

This oddity has to be understood from multiple viewpoints. Firstly, the submission of articles to journals with limited scope for psychometric research. Second, unwarranted flexibility of journals in considering submissions outside their core interests. Third, unavailability of reviewers with sufficient insight in this field of research. Fourth, and possibly the most unfortunate of all, is the distal cause that contributes in some manner to all the above issues which is the 'publish or perish' notion imposed on academics.

C) Also, they are being cited regularly. So, what could be the consequences of citing those papers?

The consequences of citing those papers are: adding strength to the authors' mis-belief that those papers have scientific rigor; increasing impact factor for those journals which makes them stretch more and more outside the primary areas of interest; diminishing the value of your paper by citing a paper that isn't contributing in any manner towards good research practice.

But, more importantly, researchers in the field must take time to bring these issues to the fore. Writing communications to the editors is really required.

Dear Peter Samuels

Many thanks for your clarification. Can you please share the link to your study guides?

Dear Paul E. Spector

Thanks for sharing the article. I will go through the paper.