Adaptation of the Rating Scale Mental Effort (RSME) for use in Indonesia

The Rating Scale Mental Effort (RSME) is a unidimensional instrument used to measure subjective mental workload. The RSME consists of a line with a length of 150 mm marked with nine anchor points, each accompanied by a descriptive label indicating a degree of effort. The RSME has been widely used in Western countries (e.g., in Europe and North America), but, when translated to Indonesian, has been shown to be relatively insensitive to changes in mental effort among Indonesians, raising the question of whether the insensitivity is related to national culture or to the translation of the scale. To investigate whether the relative insensitivity of the RSME might lie on the translation of the instrument, a new, seven-anchor point, version of the RSME was created to better reflect how the anchor points are interpreted by Indonesians. The new version of the RSME was compared with the existing, nine-anchor point version of the instrument in an experiment in which 100 participants performed a search task of different levels of difficulty. Half of the participants used the original RSME and half the adapted instrument. The adapted instrument appeared to be more sensitive to changes in load than the original RSME. However, a comparison with Dutch participants who performed the same task suggests that culture, and not only properties of the scale used to measure mental effort, influences the measurement of subjective mental workload. Relevance to industry: As industrialization increases in developing countries, so does the need for low-cost, easy to implement, and valid mental-workload instruments. We adapted the Rating Scale Mental Effort (RSME) for use by Indonesians. The adapted RSME shows improved sensitivity, but cultural differences in reporting load are still apparent. (C) 2012 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.