The development of the Khmer acculturation scale

The purpose of this investigation was to develop a multidimensional, culture-specific acculturation measure, the Khmer acculturation scale (KAS), for use with Cambodians living in the United States. The KAS development was guided by Berry's [W. H. Holtzman, T. Z. Bornemann (Eds.), (1990) Mental health of immigrants and refugees, Hogg Foundation for Mental Health, Austin, TX, pp. 90-102] framework and involved two studies. The first study involved the derivation of 130 questionnaire items and demonstration of content validity using 22 expert informants and judges, relevant literature on Cambodian and American cultures, and existing acculturation scales that had been developed for other ethnic groups. Items were created for two KAS subscales written in both English and Khmer, the Khmer orientation scale (KOS) and Anglo-American orientation scale (AOS). The second study inspected reliability and validity of KAS scores obtained from 410 Cambodian participants living in nine states. The two subscales were reduced in length via factor analyses and were found to have high internal consistency and stability reliability. Criterion validity was supported by a modest significant correlation between the KAS and scores on the Suinn-Lew Asian self-identity acculturation scale [Suinn, Rikard-Figueroa, Lew, & Vigil, Educ. Psychol. Meas. 47 (1987) 401]. Construct validity evidence for the KAS was indicated by its factor structure and support for the following predictions derived from Berry's acculturation framework: (1) Those who were in the higher SES and educational levels, of a younger generation, and employed were more acculturated compared to their counterparts; (2) Lower psychological distress as measured by the Hopkins Symptom Checklist-25 [Mollica, Wyshak, de Marneffe, Khuon, & Lavelle, Am. J Psych. 144(4) (1987b) 497] was associated with greater acculturation; (3) Those who acculturate in the integration mode, on average, scored in the normal range on the HSCL-25, while those in the separation mode scored, on average, in the clinical range. (C) 2002 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.