THE ASSESSMENT OF MOTOR AND PROCESS SKILLS APPLIED CROSS-CULTURALLY TO THE JAPANESE

Objectives. The purposes of this study were to examine the cross-cultu ral validity of the Assessment of Motor and Process Skills (AMPS) as w ell as the reliability of raters from different cultures. Method. Six trained raters from diverse cultural back-grounds scored 10 Japanese s ubjects' performances on familiar and culturally relevant tasks of the ir own choosing. Results. Results indicated high cross-cultural validi ty and interrater reliability for the AMPS, as indicated by goodness o f fit of subjects and raters via the many-faceted Rasch measurement mo del. The relative rater severity was also evaluated cross-culturally b y the standardized difference (z). The Japanese rater and one of the t hree American raters varied significantly in severity between their sc oring of Japanese subjects versus European subjects. Conclusions. The results support the hypothesis that the AMPS can be used as a cross cu ltural instrumental activities of daily living assessment. Further stu dy is needed to clarify the issue of possible cultural bias in rater s everity.