Community Support

Notes from a Roundtable on Conceptualizing and Measuring Cultural Competence

Major Issues in Measuring Cultural Competence

The following questions were raised by Stephen Leff at the beginning of the meeting as key issues to address in the discussions.

Is it possible to have behaviorally based measures that are demonstrative rather than assertive of cultural competence? Many of the organizational measures in the field presently are assertive; they do not measure a system's ability to be culturally competent. He used multiplication tests as an analogy. We need tests that measure the ability to multiply rather than the opinion that one can multiply.
Is it possible to have measures that, in some way, control for the social desirability component (i.e., the desire of individuals and organizations to look good and to answer items accordingly) of measuring cultural competence?
Can we identify measures that are predictive of service systems outcomes? While the relationship between measures and outcomes cannot really be tested until we have measures, can we arrive at measures that have a good chance of being related to outcomes both in the sense of creating more behavioral change in the desired direction and in making peoples' experience in the system both empowering and affirming?
Can we develop measures of cultural competence that are now being talked about in the managed care and quality improvement worlds as actionable measures that relate to a specific quality improvement and education activity?
Can we develop evaluation instruments that are practical for use in large systems, instruments that are not too long or burdensome in both time and resources required to administer them?

The nine papers addressing cultural competence in performance measurement systems and evaluation research were circulated to participants prior to the meeting in preparation for roundtable discussions. The papers explored a number of issues, including the dilemmas of defining and measuring cultural competence, domains of assessment, and types of assessment. Frederick T. L. Leong, Ph.D. of the Department of Psychology at Ohio State University, and Joseph G. Ponterotto, Ph.D. of the Counseling Psychology Program at Fordham University, Lincoln Center, in New York City were unable to attend. However, material from their papers was presented by Stephen Leff. A synopsis of Dr. Francis Lu's presentation, for which there is no paper, is also included. Brief summaries of papers and presentations by seven of the presenters who attended the roundtable are presented below.

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