In early 2020, ATA’s Board engaged Knapp & Associates International, Inc., a firm specializing in certification and credentialing, to perform a review of the Certification Program. Besides presenting an opinion on “decoupling” (making ATA certification independent of ATA membership)1, Knapp also made more than 30 recommendations for improving ATA’s certification system. That July, ATA’s Certification Committee created a roadmap for implementing those recommendations (or, as the case may be, rejecting them), and this has been a major focus of the committee ever since. The following is a summary of what’s been decided and done in the intervening three years.
A number of recommendations from the Knapp review have been implemented in full:
- Identify the Certification Committee on the certification page of ATA’s website: Implemented in 2020.
- Include an Americans with Disabilities Act accommodation statement in printed literature for all candidates: This was already in place at the time of the Knapp review.
- Create a more definitive statement describing the level of performance targeted by the credential—entry level, mid-level, or advanced—and communicate this definitive statement effectively to the community: This statement was created in 2021-2022 and published in the July/August 2022 issue of The ATA Chronicle.2
- Review current exam appeals policy and reconsider having the grader who reviewed the exam previously serve on the appeal panel: A new appeal panel structure that doesn’t include the reviewer took effect in 2023.
- Periodically reevaluate and update procedures and criteria for selecting graders: This review and update was performed in 2021.
- Identify three to five high-level strategic goals for the Certification Program over the next three to five years: The following goals were identified in May 2023: creating an online grading portal, offering the practice test online, improving grader consistency, devising demographic profiles of passing/failing candidates through a new association management system, and attracting a larger percentage of qualified candidates.
Work on several recommendations is still in progress:
- Provide candidates with more information about their exam performance: A task force is working on a feedback matrix intended to automatically convert exam markings into plain-language performance descriptions based on error categories and point scores.
- Include a description of what certification means for potential users of translation services in ATA’s online language services directory: The Certification Committee plans to work with the Public Relations Committee to supplement the client-facing content on ATA’s website with pertinent information about certification.
- Institute a formal periodic review process for reviewing the grading work of all graders in all language combinations: The Certification Committee is devising policies and procedures for performing routine audits of grader performance.
The Certification Committee has also rejected several of Knapp’s recommendations. These deserve a more detailed explanation.
- Evaluate whether the pass rate truly reflects the competency level of the larger population of professional translators and interpreters: The Certification Committee believes that determining the competency level of the larger population of professional translators and interpreters is not possible without an unreasonable investment of time and resources and may in fact be impossible. Although the U.S. government’s Interagency Language Roundtable (ILR) has developed skill level descriptions3 for translation performance, there is no standardized test or measurement for translation quality in the population of translators as a whole. Nor are there any statistics or data on the larger population that are publicly available from other sources, such as translation agencies or clients. ATA doesn’t have the resources to assemble such data itself, especially since the translation industry encompasses many languages that are not ATA-certifiable.
- Develop a formal and comprehensive communication strategy: This is beyond the scope of the Certification Program, although we do maintain regular contact with the ATA bodies in charge of communications, such as the Public Relations Committee and the Membership Committee.
- Prohibit current graders from participating in candidate preparation and training: The Certification Committee believes that it is appropriate for graders to participate in candidate preparation and training. Our certification exam differs from other types of testing because it doesn’t have discrete items that have right or wrong answers. Instead, the certification exam tests translation skills. It also differs from other exams of writing skill because it doesn’t have a prompt from which candidates write their own work. Therefore, it is impossible for graders to reveal answers or test items. Moreover, only graders can adequately explain such things as the passage selection process, text-level or sentence-level challenges, or the grading approach. When teaching candidate preparation classes, graders work with retired passages and explain general principles, but candidates will get completely different passages on their actual exams, so candidate preparation and training doesn’t confer unfair advantages.
- Identify language chairs (LCs4) on ATA’s website: The Certification Committee members are identified on ATA’s website. LCs are not administrators but internal coordinators with no decision-making power beyond that of other graders. In addition, the LC position rotates frequently, so it would be impractical to update the website whenever any group switches LCs. A more critical point is that anonymity is an important aspect of the Certification Program. To avoid favoritism or antipathy, graders are not told who the candidates are, and candidates don’t know who the graders are. The Certification Program manager provides an appropriate buffer between graders and candidates as needed.
- Periodically evaluate whether maintaining existing language pairs is appropriate in terms of the market and cost: There is value in having as many languages represented as possible. The discontinuation of a testing pair is problematic (some people have certification while others no longer have the possibility of earning it). The growing availability of online testing means that some low-volume language pairs may experience an increase due to marketing the exam in the target countries, thus extending ATA’s reach and credibility worldwide. The Certification Program does have a stringent process for establishing new language pairs5, which in recent years has kept out new pairs for which there is very little demand and/or adequate human resources to keep going.
- Add an experience/educational eligibility requirement: The eligibility requirement system that was in force for over 10 years—which was similar to what Knapp proposed—proved ineffectual in screening out unprepared candidates and thus improving the pass rate. A proposal by the Certification Committee in 2022 to require candidates to take a practice test was abandoned in the face of opposition from the Board. However, consideration is being given to a pre-test or screening test that is separate from the practice test.
The Certification Committee is dedicated to enhancing ATA certification as a credential and will continue to implement ideas that have merit, whether they originate with a credentialing expert or elsewhere. Upward and onward!
Notes
- Knapp, Lorena. “Certification Consultant’s Statement on the Membership Requirement for ATA Certification,” The ATA Chronicle (July/August 2020), 12.
Note: A bylaws amendment that would have enabled this change was defeated in 2019. - Bogoslaw, Larry, and David Stephenson. “Level of Performance Targeted by ATA’s Certification Credential,” The ATA Chronicle (July/August 2022), 38.
- An Overview of the History of the ILR Language Proficiency Skill Level Descriptions and Scale (Interagency Language Roundtable).
- Each of the 34 language pairs has a designated language chair who directs activities and oversees the other graders. This is a rotating position.
- ATA Certification Program Procedure for Establishing a New Language Combination.
About the Author
David Stephenson, CT is chair of ATA’s Certification Committee. An ATA-certified German>English, Dutch>English, and Croatian>English translator, he has been an independent translator for over 30 years, specializing in civil litigation and creative nonfiction. He was the 2022 recipient of ATA’s Impact Award. david@bullcitylang.com