The many faces of GESIS
Vita
1999 – 2004 Translation studies at the Institute for Translation and Interpreting, University of Heidelberg, language combination French, Spanish and English, minor in law. One semester abroad at the University of Valencia, Spain, and one year in Michigan, United States, further stays abroad in different French-speaking countries.2005 Translator and project manager at KERN AG Sprachendienste, Karlsruhe
2006/2007 Branch manager at KERN AG Sprachendienste, Mannheim
2008 - 2022 Freelance translator specializing in law, marketing and questionnaire translation, validation and verification in the fields of clinical research, education and social sciences. Regular implementation and evaluation of cognitive interviews with patients and doctors, reconciliation of several translations, evaluation of expert reviews, participation in translation discussions as part of the TRAPD approach, etc.
Since September 2022 PHD position at GESIS in the team Cross-Cultural Survey Methods.
Since December 2023 part of the GESIS Translation Team for the European Social Survey (ESS).
Service
Workpackage 5 "Questionnaire Translation" of the European Social Survey (ESS):Translation | European Social Survey
Research
Questionnaire translation, comparability of questions in cross-cultural surveys, comprehensibility of translated survey questions, cognitive interviews as a means of translation quality control, use of LLM for questionnaire translation/quality controlResearch project "Who translates questionnaires best? The impact of translator background and translation technologies on translation quality"
Publications
Journal article
Efu Nkong, Ulrike. 2024. "Questionnaire translation in cross-cultural survey research: Translators, their background and relevant competencies from the perspective of international research teams." trans-kom: Journal of Translation and Technical Communication Research 17 (2): 399-441.
Other article
Sommer, Elena, Brita Dorer, Ulrike Efu Nkong, Tim Hanson, Sabine Zinn, and Shalom H. Schwartz. 2025. "Revision and Cross-Cultural Adaptation of the Human Values Scale for Self-Completion Modes." Survey Practice 18. doi: https://doi.org/10.29115/SP-2025-0017.
Presentation at a conference
Efu Nkong, Ulrike, Dorothée Behr, and Anke Radinger. 2025. "Comparing professional translators and social scientists: The impact of translation competence, subject matter knowledge and questionnaire experience on translation quality." International Workshop on Comparative Survey Design and Implementation (CSDI), Skopje, North Macedonia, 2025-04-07.
Behr, Dorothée, Ulrike Efu Nkong, Anke Radinger, and Chia-Jung Tsai. 2025. "How is “post-editing” questionnaire translations different from from-scratch translations, in general and across different groups of translators?" ESRA 2025: 11th Conference of the European Survey Research Association, Utrecht (The Netherlands), 2025-07-16.
Sommer, Elena, Brita Dorer, Ulrike Efu Nkong, Tim Hanson, and Shalom H. Schwartz. 2025. "Questionnaire design of the revised Human Values Scale for cross-cultural surveys." 2025 International Workshop On Comparative Survey Design and Implementation (CSDI), Sample Solutions, Skopje (North-Macedonia), 2025-04-07.
Tsai, Chia-Jung, Clemens Lechner, Dorothée Behr, Ulrike Efu Nkong, and Anke Radinger. 2025. "The Influence of Translator Backgrounds on Statistical Properties of Surveys: Evidence from a Survey Experiment." ESRA 2025: 11th Conference of the European Survey Research Association, Utrecht (The Netherlands), 2025-07-16.
Efu Nkong, Ulrike, Dorothée Behr, and Anke Radinger. 2025. "Translation experience, subject matter knowledge, questionnaire experience – which expertise plays a greater role in questionnaire translation? And can AI be considered an expert yet? ." 11th EST Congress: The Changing Faces of Translation and Interpreting Studies, University of Leeds, UK, 2025-06-30.
Efu Nkong, Ulrike, and Dorothée Behr. 2024. "Questionnaire translation in cross-cultural research: Translators, their background, and relevant competencies from the perspective of international research teams." ITC Conference Granada, 2024-07-02.
Efu Nkong, Ulrike, and Dorothée Behr. 2024. "Questionnaire translators, their background and relevant competencies: Insights from a Survey among National Teams from Large-Scale Cross-National Studies ." CSDI - International Workshop on Comparative Survey Design and Implementation, SHARE Berlin Institute GmbH, 2024-03-18.
Behr, Dorothée, and Ulrike Efu Nkong. 2024. "Support Material, Instructions, and Translation Tools in Questionnaire Translation: Insights from a Survey among National Teams from Large-Scale Cross-National Studies." CSDI - International Workshop on Comparative Survey Design and Implementation, SHARE Berlin Institute GmbH, 2024-03-18.
Behr, Dorothée, and Ulrike Efu Nkong. 2023. "Questionnaire Translation Methodology: Zooming in on the Initial Translation Step and Staff in Questionnaire Translation." CSDI: International Workshop on Comparative Survey Design and Implementation, Granada, Spain, 2023-04-19.
Efu Nkong, Ulrike, and Dorothée Behr. 2023. "Who translates and why? Translation procedures in large-scale cross-cultural surveys." ESRA Conference, Milano, 2023-07-20.
Presentation not at a conference
Efu Nkong, Ulrike, Anke Radinger, and Dorothée Behr. 2025. "Comparing professional translators and social scientists: questionnaire translations from scratch vs. based on machine translation output." CS3 Meeting for Computational Survey and Social Science, 2025-01-16.
Behr, Dorothée, Ulrike Efu Nkong, Radinger Anke, and Chia-Jung Tsai. 2025. "Producing questionnaire translations: the impact of translator background and machine translation on translation quality." Mannheim Research Colloquium on Survey Methods (MaRCS), 2025-05-27.
Efu Nkong, Ulrike, Dorothée Behr, Anke Radinger, and Chia-Jung Tsai. 2025. "Questionnaire Translation Methodology: The impact of translator background and the use of translation technologies." Questionnaire Design – SurvMeth 630/Psych 711, University of Michigan, online, 2025-04-22.
Event
Dorer, Brita, and Ulrike Efu Nkong. 2025. "ESS12 Meeting with Adjudicators and Translators." ESS12 Meeting with Adjudicators and Translators, Virtuell, 2025-01-28 - 2025-01-29.
Dorer, Brita, and Ulrike Efu Nkong. 2025. "Meeting with ESS Translation Expert Panel." 2025-11-12 - 2025-11-13.
Behr, Dorothée, Ulrike Efu Nkong, Anke Radinger, and Chia-Jung Tsai. 2025. "Online Workshop: Translators’ Backgrounds and Novel Translation Methods in Questionnaire Translation ." TransBack Workshop, Online, 2025-12-01 - 2025-12-02.
Dorer, Brita, and Ulrike Efu Nkong. 2024. "ESS 12 Meeting with Translation Expert Panel ." ESS12 Meeting with ESS Translation Expert Panel, 2024-06-11 - 2024-06-19.
Efu Nkong, Ulrike, and Brita Dorer. 2024. "TranslationCTRL ESS 12 Foundation/Refresher Training." European Social Survey: Briefing for the new National Coordinators, 2024-12-11 - 2024-12-12.