Category Archives: Surveys and Opinion Polls

In the 21st century, “accessibility” often includes language, but translating a test into the strongest language of all test takers may not be realistic. Nevertheless, passing or failing a test should not depend on reading proficiency. Tests and exams are a gate for life chances and—unless being proficient in the language of the test is …

“How fair is it to deliver your exams only in English?”

With the epic backdrop of geopolitical turmoil and environmental urgency, it may seem awkward to dwell on our minute successes. What with the barbaric invasion of Ukraine? What with the courageous revolt of the Iranian people in general and of Iranian women in particular? What about the denial of the right to education for Afghan …

“Walking at a Brisk Pace, by cApStAn’s co-founder Steve Dept  “

by Steve Dept, cApStAn CEO In multilingual surveys, there is a strong trend towards performing more “upstream” quality assurance work to reduce the need for “downstream” corrective action. The late Professor Janet A.Harkness (1948-2012) relentlessly insisted on how important it is to craft questionnaire items carefully before they serve as a basis for translation and …

“Multilingual Surveys: Five cost-effective steps to improve your questionnaire before translation begins”

by Steve Dept, cApStAn co-founder When translating a survey, a linguistically correct, fluent translation does not ensure that same constructs are measured, that the survey questions are understood the same way or, for that matter, that comparable data will be collected with the translated survey questionnaire. This explains why more sophisticated translation designs are required …

“Why back translation is inadequate to assess quality in translated surveys”

The World Association for Public Opinion Research, WAPOR, is an international professional association for survey research whose members recognise the centrality of public opinion in shaping and serving society. The 75th edition of WAPOR’s annual conference was held in Dubai, UAE, from November 10 to 13, 2022. Our founding partner Steve Dept contributed to one of …

“cApStAn’s Steve Dept and Devasmita Ghosh reporting from  the 75th WAPOR conference 2022 in Dubai, UAE “

The World Association for Public Opinion Research, WAPOR, is an international professional association for survey research whose members recognise the centrality of public opinion in shaping and serving society. The 75th edition of WAPOR’s annual conference was held in Dubai, UAE, from November 10 to 13, 2022. cApStAn’s founding partner and strategic partnerships director Steve Dept was …

“cApStAn founding partner Steve Dept at WAPOR 2022 on how to focus on cross-cultural and cross-language comparability in survey questionnaires”

by Pisana Ferrari – cApStAn Ambassador to the Global Village For the past two decades the literature has hailed “team translation” as the gold standard in survey translation. Team translation is when you have several translators working separately on the same questionnaire and then they get together and discuss their translations to come to a …

“The elusive encounter of a survey methodologist, a platform engineer and a translation technologist”

cApStAn co-founder Steve Dept will be speaking on November 12, 2022, at WAPOR’s 75th Conference being held in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, on the topic of perception shifts in multilingual data collection. The talk is scheduled as part of session 12.4.1 on “Challenges of comparative research and international survey projects”, chaired by Kazimierz M. Slomczynski of …

““Anticipating Culture-Driven Perception Shifts in Multilingual Data Collection”, WAPOR 2022″

It’s a wrap ! A successful edition of the 2022 European Conference of the Association of Test Publishers (ATP) just drew to a close. Three days of intensive networking with experts from the assessment world. And, of course, attending sessions, round tables and panels to be aware of the pioneering breakthroughs in the industry. The closing keynote …

“Successful edition of the 2022 European Conference of the Association of Test Publishers (ATP) has just drawn to a close”

At cApStAn we strongly believe in the need to perform more “upstream” quality assurance work to reduce the need for “downstream” corrective action. In cApStAn’s modular approach, the creation of glossaries comes under module B, related to the preparation of a translation project. A glossary consists of a collection of terms that need to be …

“The role of glossaries in ensuring the validity and equivalence of tests/surveys across multiple languages“

If “how many sides does a hexagon have?” translates to “how many sides does a six-sided figure have?” in language X, then the translated item will not measure the same knowledge or skill. In benchmarking studies, however, comparability across different language versions of an item or question is not merely an objective, it is a …

“Live Webinar | Test and Questionnaire Adaptation – When Straightforward Translation Doesn’t Work”

Awareness of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion in tests, assessment, polls and surveys is growing, becoming increasingly indispensable as it both ensures the fairness of tests and the reliability for any data collection instrument. It is a very positive move! We at cApStAn are not  DEI-BR experts per se. We are a language company which partners …

“On-Demand Webinar | cApStAn & DEI-BR in multilingual and multicultural Tests & Surveys – Language variations and cultural considerations”