Tag Archives: surveys

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”

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”

by Roberta Lizzi – Senior project manager, external human resources director When multinational surveys and assessments go digital, content creators, principal investigators or test owners tend to rely on platforms, not only for delivery, but also for the management of the translation process. These platforms can be off-the-shelf or developed in-house. As a consequence, language …

“Why involving language services providers (LSPs) in the translation platform design is important”

EU-MIDIS II, the EU’s 2nd Minorities and Discrimination Survey, provides an interesting case study of a close and successful collaboration between the FRA, the EU Agency for Fundamental Rights, the survey organisation Ipsos MORI, and cApStAn LQC. The aim of the EU-MIDIS cycle of surveys is to assist EU institutions and policy makers in developing …

“Translating Sensitive Survey Questions: Experiences of Discrimination in Europe”

by Steve Dept, cApStAn CEO Readers of this informative series on good practice in survey translation are aware that the Economic Migration Barometer is a fictitious project, which we set up for the exclusive purpose of the series. The purpose is to illustrate the complexity of survey translation and the added value of a robust …

“The Economic Migration Barometer Series: A Survey Translation Case Study Episode 4 – Linguistic Quality Assurance and Optical Check”

by Steve Dept, cApStAn CEO By now, readers of this informative series on good practice in survey translation are aware that the Economic Migration Barometer is a fictitious project, which we set up for the exclusive purpose of the series. The purpose is to illustrate the complexity of survey translation and the added value of …

“The Economic Migration Barometer Series: A Survey Translation Case Study Episode 3 – Translation Technology and Support to translators”

by Steve Dept, cApStAn CEO By now, readers of this informative series on good practice in Economic Migration survey adaptation and translation are aware that the Economic Migration Barometer is a fictitious project, which we set up for the exclusive purpose of the series. The purpose is to illustrate the complexity of survey translation and …

“The Economic Migration Barometer Series: A survey adaptation Case Study Episode 2 – Translatability Assessment and Q-by-Q Translation and Adaptation Notes”

by Pisana Ferrari – cApStAn Ambassador to the Global Village To quote scholars Barbara Byrne and Fons van de Vijver (2010), the goal of translating scales in multilingual and cross-cultural comparative survey is to produce an instrument that “measures the same construct(s) in exactly the same way” across all language versions. We know of course …

“The challenge of translating scales in multilingual surveys and the value of leveraging “legacy materials””

by Pisana Ferrari – cApStAn Ambassador to the Global Village The non profit public service Gilani Gallopedia has taken on itself the mammoth task of pooling all the current global polling efforts on COVID-19, in a commendable effort to support the WAPOR network. It has searched over 200 national and 19 multinational polls for the …

“Over 200 national and multilingual polls, in six continents, are measuring people’s feelings and opinions about the coronavirus pandemic”