an investigation of translation students’ and instructors’ perception of advantages and disadvantages of virtual translator training courses

With the outbreak of covid-19 pandemic, educational systems across the world have been forced to change in-person courses to virtual ones, and translation studies (ts) courses have not been an exception. more and more ts programs have been shifted to online mode in different contexts. however, there has been a paucity of studies investigating the effectiveness of these programs and the stakeholders' perception of their effectiveness. the present study aims to examine the university instructors’ and students’ perceptions of the advantages and disadvantages of online translation training courses. to this end, the study followed a mixed-method approach. in the qualitative phase of the study, semi-structured interviews were conducted with 10 instructors and 20 students. in the quantitative phase, a questionnaire was distributed among 200 students asking about their perceptions of online courses. the findings indicated that students preferred in-person courses because they believed that in virtual courses there are not enough opportunities for interaction and engagement. furthermore, they referred to technical problems and testing procedures as other drawbacks of online classes. however, saving time and money, and having more autonomy and flexibility were mentioned as the advantages of online classes. in addition, the instructors were not satisfied with the level of classroom engagement of the students and the effectiveness of their instruction. based on the results of the study, it is incumbent upon the policy makers to pay more attention to the required infrastructures for effective online translator training programs. in addition, more professional development programs are required for students and teachers to improve their technological literacy.