Translation Guidelines

How to Translate the WG Questions – and Test Translations to Improve Data for Quality

These guidelines provide an overview of the WG Methodology with special attention to the Translation of WG tools and the cognitive testing of a translated version to improve data quality.

An overview of the Translation Documents:

The first document introduces the topic of Translation and the importance of translating the WG tools for ensuring valid and comparable data. Guidance is provided for accomplishing a good translation using the TRAP method (Translation, Review, Adjudication, Pretesting & Documentation).

The second document provides guidance on the importance of cognitive testing of translated versions of the WG question sets. Cognitive testing is a process of qualitative question evaluation that is used to understand and document how respondents comprehend and arrive at a response to a question in order to reduce response error and improve question response validity. This kind of testing provides important evidence in ensuring that questions capture the information intended by the survey designers. The cognitive testing of a questionnaire is a vital step in assuring the collection of high-quality survey data.