Developing and Validating EFL Learners’ Perception of Machine Translation Questionnaire

With huge improvements in the quality of Machine Translation (MT) in recent years, more interest has also been directed to its application in language learning; however, there is no standard questionnaire to assess English as a Foreign Language (EFL) learners’ perception of this technology. Therefore, this paper reports an attempt to describe the processes undertaken to validate a questionnaire developed for the first time to measure EFL students’ perception of Machine Translation. The validation processes employed were face and content validity, factor analysis informed construct validity, reliability via internal consistency using test-retest reliability as well as Cronbach’s Alpha correlation efficient. The exploratory factor analysis yielded four factors, namely, prior familiarity, degree of use, fear of detection and the importance of training among such students. The items on the questionnaire yielded factor loading ≥0.5. Reliability checking indicated that Machine Translation questionnaire was reliable. Cronbach’s Alpha obtained was 0.94 for the whole questionnaire and between 0.80-0.91 for the four subscales. Test-retest statistic examination displayed stability of the responses at two time points eight weeks apart. The final questionnaire consisted of 29 items and the psychometric analysis indicated that it was both reliable and valid. Therefore, this questioanaire can be used to gain more understanding of Machine Translation.