Effectiveness of an online training course for trainee translators: Analysis of keylogging data

The optimal measurement of the effectiveness of online translation training courses necessitates a comprehensive evaluation of the translation process and product to fully understand the impact of such courses on trainee translators’ behavior. In this study, we employed a one-group pretest-posttest design to assess the effect of a 12-week online translation training course on trainee translators’ performance and management of the translation process when translating an Arabic journalistic piece into English. Leveraging Translog, we meticulously documented the impact of the online translation training program on trainee translators’ cognitive processes and final output, both prior to and after the intervention. The findings unequivocally demonstrated that the online translation training course had a statistically significant positive impact on the trainees’ performance and production speed. Notwithstanding, our analysis revealed that the online training course had no discernible effect on the trainees’ time management of the translation task, including stages of orientation, drafting, and revision, as well as online revision. Consequently, this study concludes with pedagogical implications that have the potential to inspire improvements in undergraduate translation training programs as well as the design of future online training courses.