Translation: The Preparation of National Language Versions of Assessment Instruments [chapter]

Paulína Koršňáková, Steve Dept, David Ebbs
2020 IEA Research for Education  
To ensure the quality of its large-scale comparative studies, the International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement (IEA) has created technical standards and guidelines, and developed a wealth of experience related to instrument production. The content experts who served as test editors and the professional linguists working toward achieving equivalence of assessment materials during the verification processes informed this chapter: it provides an overview of the rationale
more » ... and implementation of linguistic quality control procedures for the instruments used in IEA studies, covering the general steps, key aspects, vocabulary, and discourse related to the translation of the study instruments. There are many challenges related to fine-tuning translations and preparing the national instruments used in IEA's large-scale comparative studies in education. The use of technology and development of tailored online translation systems can contribute here, both by guiding and streamlining the workflow and by guarding consistency. The numerous consecutive steps required to produce any national version of a large-scale international comparative assessment that strikes a good balance between faithfulness to the source and fluency in the target language are increasingly regarded as a collaborative effort between international and national experts and stakeholders rather than a system of checks and balances.
doi:10.1007/978-3-030-53081-5_6 fatcat:oqpawpfymzadphitlxxkeskuri