Skip to main content

Urdu Translation: the Validation and Reliability of the 120-Item Big Five IPIP Personality Scale

Current Psychology volume 38, pages 1530–1541 (2019)Cite this article

Abstract

People generally understand text better if the text is in their native language. Because of an increased use of personality assessment in the selection of employees and students, it is important to provide questionnaires in people’s local languages. In this study, we developed the 120-item International Personality Item Pool (IPIP) Urdu version using the Darwish translation model. The translation was verified by a panel of engineering experts and Urdu and English language experts. Moreover, an empirical investigation was conducted to determine the internal consistency, reliability and construct validity of the Urdu version. The Urdu version was internally consistent, more reliable and had higher convergent validity than its corresponding English scale.

This is a preview of subscription content, access via your institution.

Access options

Buy single article

Instant access to the full article PDF.

USD 39.95

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Fig. 1
Fig. 2

Notes

  1. https://sites.google.com/site/urdupersonalityscales/120-item-urdu-translation

  2. http://www.personal.psu.edu/j5j/IPIP/ipipneo120.htm

  3. http://pakarmedforces.com/2014/01/join-pakistan-army-as-captain-major-through-short-service-regular-commission-ssrc-may-2014-entry-for-malefemale.html

  4. http://pakarmedforces.com/2012/09/join-pakistan-navy-register-onlin.html

  5. http://www.dawn.com/news/601956/

  6. http://www.web.pk/2012/top-10-best-software-houses-of-pakistan/

References

  • Anjam, M., Siddiqui, K., & Khan, S. S. (2013). Selection of a survey research instrument: impediments of personality inventory in non-english speaking countries like Pakistan. European Journal of Business and Management, 5(20), 192–202.

    Google Scholar 

  • Baker, M., & Saldanha, G. (Eds). (2001). Routledge encyclopedia of translation studies. Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203872062.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Behling, O., & Law, K. S. (2000). Translating questionnaires and other research instruments: Problems and solutions (Vol. 133): Sage.

  • Bipp, T., & Demerouti, E. (2015). Which employees craft their jobs and how? Basic dimensions of personality and employees’ job crafting behaviour. Journal of Occupational and Organizational Psychology, 88(4), 631–655.

  • Bow, C., Hughes, B., & Bird, S. (2003). Towards a general model of interlinear text. In the Proceedings of Electronic Metastructure for Endangered Languages Data (EMELD) workshop (pp. 11-13).

  • Boyle, G. J. M. G., Saklofske, D. H. (2008). Personality measurement and testing: an overview. Personality and Social Sciences papers. Paper 294. G. J. M. Boyle, G.; Saklofske, D. H.; London, SAGE. 1: 1–29.

  • Burger, J. M. (2010). Personality, (8th ed.). Belmont: WADSWORTH Cengage Learning.

  • Buss, D. M. (1995). Evolutionary psychology: a new paradigm for psychological science. Psychological Inquiry, 6(1), 1–30.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Byham, W. C., & Pickett, D. (1997). Landing the job you want: How to have the best job interview of your life, (2nd ed.). New York: Three river press.

  • Catford, J. C. (1965). A linguistic theory of translation. An essay in applied linguistics. London: Oxford University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Cattell, R. B., Eber, H. W., Tatsuoka, M. M. (1970). “Handbook for the sixteen personality factor questionnaire (16 PF)”.

  • Cha, E. S., Kim, K. H., & Erlen, J. A. (2007). Translation of scales in cross-cultural research: issues and techniques. Journal of Advanced Nursing, 58(4), 386–395.

    PubMed  Article  Google Scholar 

  • Chan, S.-W., & Pollard, D. E. (2001). An Encyclopaedia of Translation: Chinese-English, English-Chinese: Chinese University Press.

  • Chen, S. X., & Bond, M. H. (2010). Two languages, two personalities? Examining language effects on the expression of personality in a bilingual context. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 36(11), 1514–1528.

    PubMed  Article  Google Scholar 

  • Christiansen, N., Sliter, M., & Frost, C. T. (2014). What employees dislike about their jobs: relationship between personality-based fit and work satisfaction. Personality and Individual Differences, 71, 25–29.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Cohen, J. (1988). Statistical power analysis for the behavioral sciences (rev. ed.). New York: Academic Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Costa, P. T., & McCrae, R. R. (1992). Revised NEO Personality Inventory (NEO-PI-R) and NEO Five-Factor Inventory (NEO-FFI) professional manual. Odessa, FL: Psychological Assessment Resources.

  • Costa, P. T., & McCrae, R. R. (2008). The revised neo personality inventory (neo-pi-r). The SAGE Handbook of Personality Theory and Assessment, 2, 179–198.

    Google Scholar 

  • Cruz, S., Silva, F. Q. d., & Capretz, L. F. (2015). Forty years of research on personality in software engineering: A mapping study. Computers in Human Behavior, 46, 94–113.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Darwish, A. (1989). The translation process: A view of the mind. Document available on the Internet at <http://www.surf.net.au/writescope/translation/mindview.html>. Accessed 18/01/2003.

  • Ervin–Tripp, S. (2011). Advances in the study of bilingualism: a personal view. In V. J. Cook & B. Bassetti (Eds.), Language and bilingual cognition (pp. 219–228). New York: Psychology Press.

  • Esposito, J. L., Agard, E., & Rosnow, R. L. (1984). Can confidentiality of data pay off? Personality and Individual Differences, 5(4), 477–480.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Funder, D. C. (2001). The personality puzzle, (2nd ed.). New York: Norton.

  • Goldberg, L. R. (1992). The development of markers for the Big-Five factor structure. Psychological assessment, 4(1), 26.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Gow, A. J., Whiteman, M. C., Pattie, A., & Deary, I. J. (2005). Goldberg’s ‘IPIP’Big-Five factor markers: Internal consistency and concurrent validation in Scotland. Personality and Individual Differences, 39(2), 317–329.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Inceoglu, I., & Warr, P. (2011). Personality and job engagement. Journal of Personnel Psychology, 10(4), 5.

  • Kardanova-Biryukova, K. S. (2014). Modeling translating as a dynamic process: autopoietic framework. Journal of Siberian Federal University, 2, 244–254.

    Google Scholar 

  • Kehn, A., S. E. Culhane, L. Kolmans and S. J. Bongard (2014). The German translation of the Novaco anger scale and provocation inventory (Ger-NAS-PI). Current Psychology 1–17.

  • Khan, I. A., W.-P. Brinkman, N. Fine and R. M. Hierons (2008). Measuring personality from keyboard and mouse use. Proceedings of the 15th European conference on Cognitive ergonomics: the ergonomics of cool interaction, ACM.

  • Khan, I. A., Khalid, O., Jadoon, W., Shan, R. U., & Nasir, A. N. (2015). Predicting programmers' personality via interaction behaviour with keyboard and mouse. PeerJ PrePrints, 3, e1441.

    Google Scholar 

  • Kouwenhoven, H., & Van Mulken, M. (2012). The perception of self in L1 and L2 for Dutch-English compound bilinguals. Paper presented at the Papers of the Anéla 2012 Applied Linguistics Conference.

  • Leech, N. L., Barrett, K. C., & Morgan, G. A. (2005). SPSS for intermediate statistics: Use and interpretation, (2nd ed.). Mahwah: Lawrence Erlbaum.

  • Leutner, F., Ahmetoglu, G., Akhtar, R., & Chamorro-Premuzic, T. (2014). The relationship between the entrepreneurial personality and the big five personality traits. Personality and Individual Differences, 63, 58–63.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Lew, R. (2011). Online Dictionaries of English. Fuertes-Olivera, P.A. and H. Bergenholtz (Eds.). ELexicography: The Internet, Digital Initiatives and Lexicography: 230-250. London/New York: Continuum

  • McCrae, R. R., & Costa, P. T. (1987). Validation of the five-factor model of personality across instruments and observers. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 52(1), 81.

    PubMed  Article  Google Scholar 

  • McCrae, R. R., & Costa Jr., P. T. (1997). Personality trait structure as a human universal. American Psychologist, 52(5), 509.

    PubMed  Article  Google Scholar 

  • McCrae, R. R., Kurtz, J. E., Yamagata, S., & Terracciano, A. (2010). Internal consistency, retest reliability, and their implications for personality scale validity. Personality and Social Psychology Review, 15(1), 28–50.

    PubMed  PubMed Central  Article  Google Scholar 

  • Naderian, M. (2015). Study of the relationship between personality aspects (introvert, extrovert) and hardiness rate of professional athletes of football, handball and basketball teams of superior leagues of Isfahan Province. Jurnal UMP Social Sciences and Technology Management, 3(2), 538.

    Google Scholar 

  • Nida, E. A. (1975). Language structure and translation: essays (A. S. Dil Ed. 1st ed. vol. 8): Stanford: Stanford University Press.

  • Nunnally, J., & Bernstein, I. (1994). Psychometric Theory (3). New York: McGraw-Hill.

    Google Scholar 

  • Pack, D. J., W. Streilein, S. Webster and R. Cunningham (2002). Detecting HTTP tunneling activities, DTIC Document.

  • Parveen, A. (2007). Effect of home environment on personality and academic achievement of students of grade 12 in Rawalpindi division. Islamabad: National University of Modern Languages.

    Google Scholar 

  • Renau, V., Oberst, U., Gosling, S. D., Rusiñol, J., & Lusar, A. C. (2013). Translation and validation of the Ten-Item-Personality Inventory into Spanish and Catalan. Aloma: revista de psicologia, ciències de l'educació i de l'esport Blanquerna, 31(2), 85–97.

    Google Scholar 

  • Santrock, J. W., Johnson, C., & Patterson, C. (2012). A topical approach to life-span development. New York: McGraw-Hill.

    Google Scholar 

  • Sneed, J. R., & Pimontel, M. A. (2015). Journal Watch: J. Specht, SC Schmukle, & B. Egloff (2011). Stability and change of personality across the life course: The impact of age and major life events on mean-level and rank-order stability of the Big Five. Journal of Personality & Social Psychology 101: 862-882. Psychology, 101, 862–882.

    Google Scholar 

  • Sperber, A. D. (2004). Translation and validation of study instruments for cross-cultural research. Gastroenterology, 126, S124–S128.

    PubMed  Article  Google Scholar 

  • Treiber, L. T., C.; Schmitt, M.; Schreiber, W.H.;. (2013). Testing The German 300-Item-IPIP-Scale: The transaltion and convergent validation of the 300-item-IPIP-scale with its well known counterpart, the NEO-PIR. 1st World Conference on Personality, Stelerbosch, South Africa.

  • Zaiontz, C. (2014). Real statisitcs using excel. Retrieved 1-Jan-2015, 2014, from www.real-statistics.com.

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Computer Sciences, COMSATS Institute of Information Technology, Tobe Campus, Abbottabad, Pakistan

    Iftikhar Ahmed Khan, Babar Nazir, Syed Sajid Hussain, Fiaz Gul Khan & Imran Ali Khan

  2. Computer Software Engineering, University of Engineering & Technology, Mardan Campus, Mardan, Pakistan

    Ahmad Khan

Authors
  1. Iftikhar Ahmed Khan
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Ahmad Khan
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  3. Babar Nazir
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  4. Syed Sajid Hussain
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  5. Fiaz Gul Khan
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  6. Imran Ali Khan
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Iftikhar Ahmed Khan.

Ethics declarations

Ethical Approval

All procedures performed in studies involving human participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of the institutional and/or national research committee and with the 1964 Helsinki declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards.

Appendix-1

Appendix-1

Items not part of actual 120-item IPIP and therefore, not part of the translated scale
1 Leave work completion on circumstances . کام کﯼ تکمیل حالات پر چھوڑ دیتا/دیتی ہوں
2 Not agree in tax evasion ٹیکس کی ا د ا ئیگی میں ھیرا پھیری کی قانل نہیں
3 Save life in difficult situations مشکل حالات میں ہر قیمت پر اپنی جان کو بچا نا چا یئے۔

Appendix-2

Items part of actual 120 item IPIP but not translated by Parveen (2007)
Short from of IPIP Scale Item Corresponding Urdu Translation in English
1. Obstruct others’ plans Try to interfere in other people plans
2. Leave my belongings around Put my things in an unorderly fashion
3. Feel comfortable with myself I am happy with myself.
4. Wait for others to lead the way Like to work in other people directions
5. Don’t understand people who get emotional I cannot understand people who show emotions.
6. Take no time for others I don’t have time for other people.
7. Break my promises I don’t keep promises.
8. Am not bothered by difficult social situations I do not get worried from the problems in the society.
9. Like to take it easy I consider every work easy.
10. Am attached to conventional ways I like to abide the rules of the culture.
11. Get back at others Like to help other people
12. Put little time and effort into my work I am not hardworking.
13. Am able to control my cravings I can control my will.
14. Act wild and crazy Often become angry
15. Am not interested in theoretical discussions I don’t like to debate with others.
16. Boast about my virtues I praise myself most often.
17. Have difficulty starting tasks I feel difficulty in starting some work
18. Remain calm under pressure I don’t get worried in difficult situations.
19. Look at the bright side of life Always see good sides of the things in life
20. Believe that we should be tough on crime I think we should be strict against crimes.
21. Try not to think about the needy I don’t think about the one in need.
22. Act without thinking I do first and think later.

ᅟ

Rights and permissions

Reprints and Permissions

About this article

Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Khan, I.A., Khan, A., Nazir, B. et al. Urdu Translation: the Validation and Reliability of the 120-Item Big Five IPIP Personality Scale. Curr Psychol 38, 1530–1541 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12144-017-9706-5

Download citation

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12144-017-9706-5

Keywords

  • Personality
  • Big five IPIP scale
  • Urdu
  • Translation
  • Reliability
  • Validity