Process of Translation of the Children’s Worlds Subjective Well-Being Scale in Indonesia

Abstract

Indonesia has been participating in the Children’s Worlds international project on conducting a survey of children’s well-being. A new context-free multi-item scale named CWSWBS (Children’s Worlds Subjective Well-Being Scale) has been used on this survey. Since the original version of the scale was in English, the scale required to be translated into Indonesian language. The aim of this article is to explain the translation process. Method used in this study including testing the translated scale for legibility and how children understood the wording, conducting Focus Group Discussion (FGD) with children, working on back translation, and sent the back translated scale to Children’s Worlds coordination secretariat to be reviewed. This process has been done in the pilot testing of Indonesian version of the CW-SWBS in children age 8, 10, 12 year-olds (N = 425) in Bandung, West Java. Result findings showed the Indonesian version of CW-SWBS has been translated excellently and was understood by children age 8, 10, and 12 year-olds. Keywords—children; CW-SWBS; Indonesia; life satisfaction; subjective well-being; West Java