Cross-Cultural Adaptation and Validation of the Language Experience and Proficiency Questionnaire Into Kannada.

Purpose: As there are no questionnaires to assess the experience and proficiency of bilingual/multilingual Kannada speakers, this study aimed to adapt and validate the Language Experience and Proficiency Questionnaire (LEAP-Q) into the Kannada language cross-culturally.

Method: A nonrandomized, prospective cross-sectional design with purposive sampling was used in the study. The cross-cultural adaptation was performed using a standard guideline for developing the questionnaire. The Kannada version of the LEAP-Q (KLEAP-Q) was administered to three groups of participants. Group 1 included 200 bilingual participants (first language [L1]-Kannada, second language [L2]-English), Group 2 included 25 participants with good proficiency in Kannada, and Group 3 consisted of 25 participants with Telugu as L1, English as L2, and Kannada as third language. Responses from the participants were further tabulated and subjected to various statistical analyses to assess the psychometric properties of the questionnaire.

Results: Results showed a high test-retest reliability for the KLEAP-Q. The factor analysis results yielded eight factors with eigenvalues of more than 1.8 and had a Cronbach's alpha ranging from .61 to .95, signifying a good internal consistency of the KLEAP-Q. Mann-Whitney test revealed significant differences between the speakers with good proficiency and speakers with low proficiency in Kannada, indicating a good known groups discriminant validity.

Conclusion: As the KLEAP-Q has good reliability and validity, it can be used as a supplementary tool with other objective measures to document the experience and proficiency of Kannada-speaking bilingual individuals.

Supplemental Material: https://doi.org/10.23641/asha.23631519.