Understanding rubric use in peer assessment of translation

ABSTRACT

The present study adopted a process-oriented approach to investigate the efficacy of rubrics as a component of translation competence. In this study, 20 students performed an assessment of a Chinese-English translation. Subsequently, this group underwent a three-week rubric training program and were tasked to perform a second assessment of a similar Chinese-English translation. In both tasks the screen capture program, Camtasia was utilized to record each student’s assessment process. Based on the video recordings it was discovered that across the three rubric criteria (addition, simplification, reformulation), students visited the criterion of addition most frequently, and generated fewest but lengthiest comments. By comparison, they spent less time examining the criterion of simplification, though they produced more comments. This suggests that addition is more time-consuming than simplification to assess, yet more conducive to the assessors’ reflection. In addition, it was determined that after undergoing the training module, students showed early signs of rubric internalization, although their rubric mastery was clearly not fully automated. Specific pedagogical applications are thus suggested.

KEYWORDS:

• Peer assessment
• rubric training
• translation competence
• peer feedback
• screen recording

Acknowledgement

This author wants to express his sincere gratitude to Professor Valdeon for his invaluable input.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by Humanity and Social Science Fund of Ministry of Education of China [grant number 17YJC740074] and the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities of China [grant number 20720181002].

Notes on contributors

Wei Su

Wei Su is an associate professor from Xiamen University, China. He received his PhD in Translation and Interpreting in 2011, and published research articles in journals like Language awareness, The Interpreter and Translator Trainer and Language and Education.