Subproject 1: Quality and Role: The professionals' view

In Subproject 1 a web-based survey was conducted among the members of the International Association of Conference Interpreters (AIIC) in autumn 2008. The purpose of the survey was to elicit professional interpreters’ views on the two interrelated aspects of quality standards and self-perception of their role. While a series of user expectation surveys on the topic of quality has been carried out and yielded rich findings, few surveys have focused on the professional perspective. This project uses advanced research methods to fill that lacuna.
The web-based questionnaire was divided into three parts. The first part collected sociodemographic background information, while the second part was essentially a replication of the seminal study by Bühler (1986). Survey participants were requested to rate the relative importance of quality parameters on a four-point scale and indicate whether their preferences varied according to setting or meeting type. As a novelty in survey research on quality, respondents were offered a one-minute audio sample of a simultaneous interpretation and asked to rate its quality on a six-point scale. The third and longest part of the questionnaire was dedicated to conference interpreters’ self-perception of their role.
With a fielding time of 7 weeks, including two reminders, the web-based survey yielded a response rate of 28.5% (n=704).

This project is carried out by Cornelia Zwischenberger.