18.06.2026

IEA and cApStAn: A Debriefing Meeting on TIMSS 2027 Translation Verification

Published in:  cApStAn updates, Survey translation and localisation

Following the completion of the translation verification of the national versions of the TIMSS 2027 Field Trial instruments, cApStAn welcomed colleagues from the International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement (IEA) to our Brussels office for a full-day debriefing meeting.

The meeting offered an opportunity to look back at a demanding and productive phase of work, involving 69 countries, 51 languages and 99 locales. Together, the IEA and cApStAn teams reviewed what worked well, discussed points for improvement, and reflected on how to further strengthen workflows for the next stages of the project.

For cApStAn, exchanges like this are an important part of project learning. Translation verification in international large-scale assessments is not only about checking translated materials against source versions. It is also about supporting comparability across languages and education systems, while remaining attentive to local contexts, cultural appropriateness, and the practical realities faced by national teams.

The debriefing meeting also underlined the value of close collaboration between project partners. Bringing together the perspectives of IEA, national centres, translation teams and linguistic quality control specialists helps ensure that lessons learned during one phase can be carried forward into the next. This is especially important in studies such as TIMSS, where linguistic equivalence and cultural relevance are central to the validity of the assessment.

During the visit, Steve Dept also spoke with Lauren Musu, Head of Translation Verification and International Quality Control at IEA, about one of the recurring challenges in international assessments: the trade-off between standardisation and localisation.

Their short conversation touches on why this balance matters, and how international studies can remain comparable while still allowing national versions to make sense for the students who take them.

Watch the video here.