The ICCS teams at the Universities of Münster and Duisburg-Essen dedicated the majority of their efforts during the months of September and October to the preparation of the field trial. The focus of this phase of work was the translation of the questions selected for the field trial, some of which were newly developed, from English – both for the knowledge test and the target group-specific questionnaires.
First, members of the ICCS team at the University of Münster for the German location took part in a two-day training course run by the ICCS International Study Team at the University of Bath and the IEA Hamburg. In this course, key steps in the translation process were explained and the particiants were introduced to the field data collection procedures.
Anschließend wurden die im Lehrgang vermittelten Inhalte zum Übersetzungsprozess in Teamarbeit vom gesamten ICCS-Team der Universitäten Münster und Duisburg-Essen angewendet. The challenge was to remain close to the English original in the translations of the questions while at the same time finding German formulations that were both understandable and precise in terms of content.
The translation work was successfully completed and handed over to the Language Verification Team at IEA Hamburg for review.