La evaluación para el aprendizaje de la interpretación de conferencias. Concepciones y prácticas de docentes y discentes en tres cursos de posgrado de Cataluña, Portugal y Canarias.

This dissertation focuses on trainers and trainees’ practices and views on assessment for learning in conference interpreter training. It uses a qualitative approach based on data collected in three postgraduate courses in Catalonia, Portugal and the Canary islands during the academic year 2010-2011. It reviews literature on educational assessment and assessment in interpreter education, including the evolution of educational assessment over time and prevailing paradigms on learning —behaviourism, cognitivism and sociocultural or constructivist theories, learning as mediation and interaction and other key concepts (meaningful learning, Zone of Proximal Development, dialogic view on learning and self-regulation)—, as well as types of assessment and definition of assessment for learning; interpreter education over time, conference interpreting assessment construct, formative assessment and assessment for learning , key concepts such as metacognition and deliberate practice, interpreting assessment tools, feedback, and students’ involvement in conference interpreting assessment. Primary sources consist of individual interviews with trainers and focus groups with trainees, as well as questionnaires for both groups; qualitative content analysis of this information is presented with quotes by query tool. Secondary sources consist in class observation, and include transcripts of meaningful pieces of classroom assessment, analysed in terms of content, purpose and development, feedback reception, students’ involvement and process-vs.-product-oriented approach on criteria selection. Findings account separately for trainees’ and trainers’ view on assessment, as a result from the triangulation of information analysis on trainers’ interviews and questionnaires on the one hand, and trainees’ focus groups and questionnaires on the other. Furthermore, they include results from the statistical contrasting of quantitative data on criteria obtained through questionnaires by trainees and trainers, as well the as researcher’s view on assessment practices in the classroom —resulting from class observation, class recordings reviewing and focused analysis of assessment transcripts. Conclusions discuss trainees’, trainers’ and researcher’s views by answering research questions. They show that assessment plays a very important role in the conference interpreting classroom, due to its usefulness for benchmarking, fostering metacognition, self-regulation and autonomy, both during the course and as a basis for the student’s career. For assessment to be useful for learning, both trainers and trainees agree on the fact that such assessment must be clear, accurate and demanding on the one hand, so that false expectations are not raised, but at the same time it must be able to convey the confidence on the trainee's ability to overcome obstacles.. They refuse assessment as mere validation or mistake list, without considering its relevance in the performance or for the particular trainee, or feedback focused only on the form of a performance, interpretation as a product or destructive feedback, since this prevents feedback to be integrated and hinders learning progress. Furthermore, the difficulty of assessment is highlighted and more clarification and consistency on assessment construct is missed. Last, the constant presence of assessment may distract students from real practice of interpreting and the role of communication in such process.