A Psychological Model of Translation Quality Assessment: Applying Bloom’s Taxonomy of Educational Objectives to Grade English Texts

The present study explored the possibility of grading English texts based on the psychological processes a non-native English translator might go through by applying Benjamin Bloom’s Taxonomy of Educational Objectives: Cognitive Domain. The researchers’ primary assumption was that the difficulty of English texts would increase as the translator’s performance proceeds from translating an English text that requires their only language Knowledge through the texts requiring increasing demands of their Comprehension, Application, Analysis, Aynthesis and Evaluation abilities. To the researchers, the quality of the translation performance could be assessed based on the type of psychological processing they conduct in translating a given text. To fulfil the ultimate purpose of the research, 30 undergraduate students majoring in English translation at Islamic Azad University, Karaj Branch, Iran took part in this investigation in 2012. In addition to Comprehensive English Language Test (CELT), the participants were given a translation essay-type test that included six short English passages of 150 to 200 words. The texts were carefully graded based on the type of behavioural objectives (i.e., psychological processes) demanded of the translator and listed according to the hierarchy of Bloom’s cognitive domain. A non-parametric test of Kruskal Wallis proved that except for the fifth level, the Synthesis text, the trainee translators’ quality of performance was graded properly based on the difficulty levels expected and explored in Bloom’s levels of cognitive domain. The findings in this study are considerately practical in translation quality assessment, upgrading the reliability estimate of translation tests and teaching translation skills and strategies.