Does your organization require a test in a different language? Or a test adapted for a different culture? Testing instruments are often adapted for use in different linguistic and cultural contexts for education, health and other applications.
Testing instruments, like the world’s plastic packaging, don’t need only serve a single purpose and a single audience. They can be recycled into something useful and new for multiple groups, as well as be designed to meet legal requirements and reduce test development costs.
One important step in the test adaptation process, however, is pilot testing. It is used to establish how sound a draft assessment is before it is tested in the field.
In this blog post we will explore the topic of pilot testing as it relates to test adaptation.
Pilot testing is a small-scale trial run of an assessment. The goal is to identify and mitigate any potential problems in order to prevent them from escalating and being included in large-scale field testing.
To conduct a pilot study, an assessment is administered to a small group of test takers. They are asked to identify any issues that they encounter throughout the assessment. This might include confusing instructions (or confusing interfaces for computer-based tests), ambiguous test items or formatting, inappropriate pictures or references, and any problem areas or errors of any type.
Depending on the assessment, it may require more than one round of pilot testing.
Pilot testing often works best when the assessment is administered to a small group that is linguistically, culturally and demographically similar to your target group of test takers. Another option is to conduct pilot testing with a group of bilingual subjects.
There is no hard and fast rule about how many participants should take part in a pilot study. Yet, the group should be statistically significant but still contain fewer participants than those who will take part in the field test.
It’s not all about the test takers though. The characteristics of the test administrators should be taken into account as well.
Pilot testing is a cost-effective way to evaluate an assessment’s validity and effectiveness among the target population, in addition to its readiness to be used in the field.
Pilot testing can help gauge the reactions of the target group, diagnose unexpected challenges, provide the evidence and tools needed to make adjustments, and help your organization prepare for larger-scale testing.
While pilot testing is different for every project, it always starts with the right team – and the right partner.
Responsive Translation provides translation, adaptation, validation and other foreign-language services in more than 200 languages and dialects. We specialize in high-stakes projects and serving compliance-intensive industries. If you’d like to find out more about what we can do for your organization, please get in touch at 646-847-3309 or [email protected].