Category Archives: Tests and Assessments

Steve Dept, cApStAn CEO It may take a psychologist or a subject matter expert to be a test author and develop good questions, but nothing speaks against that person being monolingual, right? It doesn’t prevent them from doing a sterling job. Anglo-Saxon items writing practices have dominated the assessment universe for over half a century, …

“Translatability and Cultural Suitability Workshops for Test Authors”

by Pisana Ferrari – cApStAn Ambassador to the Global Village  Standardized tests and assessments are used in a variety of different contexts: admission to schools and universities, professional certifications, hiring, or collecting information about background variables, for example, and can come in more than one language. In this case, test or assessment developers will need …

“How to best approach the translation and adaptation of tests and surveys for gendered languages”

cApStAn co-founder Steve Dept was in Paris on June 9-10, 2022, at a meeting of the FLIP+ Association, a group of public institutions who switched from pencil-and-paper to computer-based assessment (CBA) for their national examinations, or who are introducing digital central assessments for the first time. The acronym? The first four participants were France, Luxembourg, …

“cApStAn in Paris at a FLIP+ meeting, a space to share knowledge and best practices in e-assessments”

by Pisana Ferrari – cApStAn Ambassador to the Global Village The Halin Prémont Enneagram Indicator, developed by Belgian researchers Philippe Halin and Jacques Prémont, is a scientifically validated questionnaire designed to determine the respondent’s Enneagram type. It is used for leadership coaching and has 52 questions used to attribute a score out of 100 for …

“Double Source Double Translation Design For A Leadership Assessment Questionnaire”

by Pisana Ferrari – cApStAn Ambassador to the Global Village Psychometric tests in technology-rich environments, adaptive psychological tests, social and emotional skills, and profiling tests have gone multinational, thereby increasing the need for translation and adaptation into multiple languages. The International Test Commission guidelines for translating and adapting tests are our “guiding light” and our …

“Psychometric tests often have high stakes: how to address potential biases and other challenges when adapting them in multiple languages”

by Pisana Ferrari – Branding and Social Media Manager If the level of language proficiency of a skills assessment is too high, this may hamper the correct measuring of these very skills. For example, a skilled programmer may not pass a test due to the high threshold of English proficiency that is required in order …

“Disentangling Proficiency in Programming from Proficiency in English: Codility meets cApStAn”

Andrea Ferrari, cApStAn co-founder You are going to administer a test or questionnaire in multiple countries, cultures, and languages. We don’t need to convince you that the reliable validation of translated data collection instruments requires­ a robust Linguistic Quality Assurance (LQA) design. A design that focuses on equivalence, comparability as well as appropriateness in each …

“Setting up a robust Linguistic Quality Assurance process for your tests and assessments on a low budget”

cApStAn organises its language services into 22 modules, or building blocks. Depending on the client’s requirements, on time and resources available, and on the purpose and life cycle of the document, cApStAn will combine different modules to assemble a coherent project with the most suitable workflow. You will ultimately decide on which modules to keep. …

“Preparation of Translation Process: Legacy Content Transfer & Management”

Codility is the #1 rated recruitment platform for developers, helping world-class companies the likes of Microsoft, Intel and American Express to assess candidate programmers via skills-based coding tests. The tests are administered in English, but often the candidates are not native English speakers. Hence the “pain point” identified by Codility: a too high level of …

“On-Demand Webinar | Disentangling Proficiency in Programming from Proficiency in English: Codility Meets cApStAn”

by Marielle Lerner – Localization Specialist Lost in adaptation If you are involved with the production of international surveys or assessments, you have likely observed the “lost in translation” phenomenon in action. On the other hand, you may have never heard the expression “lost in adaptation”, something that we at cApStAn are always thinking about …

“How can you create culturally fair content for tests and surveys?”

A translatability assessment (TA) is a tried and tested method to optimize the master version of your assessment or survey questionnaire before the actual translation and adaptation process begins. In many multilingual tests or surveys—not only PISA or PIAAC or Pew Research Center’s Global Attitudes Project—the TA has become an important design step. The TA process increases …

“On-Demand Webinar |Translatability Assessment”

Pros and cons of back translation in assessments and surveys A webinar by Andrea FERRARI and Steve DEPT, the founders of cApStAn Linguistic Quality Control. In 45 minutes, they will tell you everything you always wanted to know about back translation but never dared to ask such as: Telling examples from international studies – for which Andrea and Steve were commissioned …

“On-Demand Webinar| Pros and cons of back translation in assessments and surveys”