Founding Partner & Director
Capstan SA, Belgium
Steve Dept is a linguist (M.A. in Classical Philology and Comparative Linguistics) and a founding partner of cApStAn, the agency in charge of linguistic quality assurance in major International Large-Scale Assessments (ILSAs) such as OECD/PISA, OECD/PIAAC and IEA/TIMSS. Steve received his education in English, Dutch, French and German. He studied languages and linguistics but is essentially an autodidact and a field practitioner. In 1998, he was commissioned to organise the translation review of PISA 2000 instruments in 24 languages, with a sepacial focus on cross-language and cross-cultural comparability. Since then, Steve has coordinated linguistic quality control of all language versions of PISA, TIMSS, PIRLS, PIAAC, UNESCO/LAMP, ICILS, TALIS.
He acts as a translation/adaptation consultant for test owners and test sponsors in the private sector, the public sector and the non-profit sector. Over the years, Steve’s attention has shifted towards embedding linguistic quality assurance into the test development process with a view to reducing post hoc corrective action. This involves reviewing exam content before it is adapted for delivery in multiple languages or cultures. His translatability assessment methodology has become an integral part of the adaptation design of all major ILSAs and over forty multilingual surveys. Steve’s joint activities with education researchers and psychometricians provide input that feeds into the theoretical underpinning of cApStAn's empirical methodology. Steve is a frequent speaker at international conferences.
Wednesday, October 25, 2023
7:30 AM – 8:00 AM MT