The effect of teacher experience and training on translation assessment: Results from the EACT project

Abstract

This paper presents the results of a study that explores the relationship between the background of translator trainers in Spain and their attitudes towards and practices in assessment. A sample of 97 translator trainers from five Spanish universities completed an online questionnaire designed to gather information about such attitudes and practices. Several questionnaire responses that provided information about the participants’ background characteristics and the attitudes and practices in question were analysed using tests of association. The data indicate the impact of two factors: having received training in translation teaching and having experience as a professional translator. Both seemed related to greater awareness of the importance of assessment within translator training and to a willingness to improve and adapt assessment practices over time. Even so, the relatively few statistically significant associations observed, combined with generally small-to-moderate effect sizes, suggest substantial individual and contextual variability, potentially driven by unmeasured internal factors such as preferences, intuition, prior experiences, as well as external conditions such as language pairs and cohort sizes. At the same time, given the study’s limited power to detect small effects, we cannot exclude more subtle relationships that may emerge in larger samples or more fine-grained designs. Establishing whether such background factors are associated with assessment is relevant for designing targeted educator development and for improving the consistency and professional alignment of assessment in translator education.