Back translation as a documentation tool

Abstract

Using back translation as a quality assessment tool in multilingual survey research is now deemed obsolete or on its way to becoming so, although it is still widely practiced. This paper will argue that back translation may be still useful as a documentation tool, not as a quality control tool. To support this premise, a review of literature that uses back translation to illustrate inevitable differences between the source and the target text is provided. This paper proposes a baseline for using back translation as a documentation tool, using examples of "good" and "bad" back translations. The value of using back translation is further demonstrated using examples from recent studies that integrated back translation into their documentation. This less-discussed use of back translation in questionnaire translation methodology merits the attention of translators and researchers. Although the utility of back translation as a quality control tool is deemed obsolete, it still has the potential for useful application as a documentation tool.

Evaluating consumer environmental behavior for sustainable development: A confirmatory factor analysis

“…The original questionnaire was available in the English language and was translated into Bahasa Malaysia. Later on, back translation was done to confirm the actual content of each construct that used into the questionnaire (Son, 2018). All the statistical analyses were completed with the aid of two software: (a) Statistical Package for Social Science (SPSS) version 20 and (b) Analysis of a Moment Structures (AMOS) version 21.…”

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“…After all data were collected, organized, and de-identified, two translators (graduate students in a Hispanic Studies program with experience in translation work) completed translations from Spanish to English, followed by back-translation from English to Spanish to check for accuracy and to reconcile discrepancies between the participants’ narratives and the translation (Ozolins, 2009; Son, 2018). After the translations were completed, the first author read each original piece of writing to check for accuracy of the final product.…”

For Sustainable Application of Mobile Learning: An Extended UTAUT Model to Examine the Effect of Technical Factors on the Usage of Mobile Devices as a Learning Tool

“…The questionnaire was translated into Arabic by an accredited office employing the back-translation method, which enhanced the goodness of the document [57], before being translated back into its original language (English) by a language specialist to ensure accuracy. Generally, in new or modified models, the researcher should undertake a face validity test [58].…”