The value of cross-cultural survey research hinges on the equivalence of translated questionnaires or measurement instruments. Hence, researchers need to pay particular attention when translating a questionnaire from one language into another. This workshop will start with an introduction to questionnaire translation for cross-cultural surveys, considering the importance of good questionnaire translation. We will then present state-of-the-art translation methodology - in particular, TRAPD, a “team” or “committee approach” including the steps Translation, Review, Adjudication, Pretesting and Documentation. Then, we will move to a more practical perspective and introduce the Dos and Don'ts in questionnaire translation, looking at dimensions such as meaning, cultural adequacy, style, consistency, translation of answer scales, etc., that should be considered when translating questionnaires. Including hands-on exercises, this part of the workshop should lead to a better understanding of the importance of comparability across languages and comprehensibility of translated questionnaires.

In the second part of the workshop, we will talk about the rise of machine translation and Large Language Models (LLM) in the general translation business as well as in questionnaire translation settings. The workshop will be looking at current developments of LLM tools in questionnaire translation and discuss opportunities and risks that come with their use. We will give an insight into (our) most recent research results regarding the use of LLMs, giving guidance on how to implement these findings into questionnaire translation workflows without jeopardizing quality. Again, by offering hands-on exercises, you will have the opportunity to try out and compare different classical and more recent questionnaire translation methods and learn how to evaluate translation quality.

The workshop welcomes translators as well as (social) scientists wanting to learn about questionnaire translation in general and how to keep high quality standards when using machine translation or LLM-generated translations as a basis for questionnaire translations.

The European Social Survey (ESS) will serve as a use case in this workshop. For more than 20 years, it has been rigorously implementing the TRAPD scheme and thereby served as a model for the field of cross-cultural survey methodology.

 

Organizational structure of the course

The following persons will find the course useful:

By the end of the course, you will