Development of a brief scale to measure acculturation among Japanese Americans

Objective: To introduce a brief scale for measuring the level of acculturat ion among Japanese Americans and to describe its development and utility. W e also evaluate the relationship of demographic characteristics with accult uration in one sample of Japanese Americans. Participants and Data Collection Methods: Pilot survey of a convenience sam ple of 70 Japanese American adults and survey of a random sample of 1,097 m embers of Japanese American Community Centers in the greater Los Angeles ar ea. Independent Variables: Demographics and Japanese generation. Dependent Variables: Brief measure of Japanese American Acculturation. Analysis Plan: T-tests and ANOVA for examining unadjusted group differences and multiple regression analysis for examining predictors of acculturation . Results: Our brief measure of acculturation had reproducible factor loading s and reliability (Cronbach's Alpha = .82) in two random samples of Japanes e Americans and, in our pretest data, was highly correlated with a longer a cculturation instrument commonly used (r = .71). After adjustment for demog raphics and recruitment site, we found that Japanese American adults under 45 years of age scored up to 9% higher on acculturation than older Japanese Americans and those with incomes above $50,000 per year scored 10% higher on acculturation then those with. incomes under that amount. Conclusions: We developed and tested a brief scale for measuring acculturat ion among Japanese Americans. This scale demonstrates good reliability and validity in two different community samples and holds promise for explainin g variation in this ethnic group including the evaluation of the impact of community programs. Such a measure may be especially suited to acculturatio n evaluation in long, complex survey instruments. (C) 2000 John Wiley & Son s, Inc.