The GAMETRAPP project: S panish scholars’ perspectives and attitudes towards neural machine translation and post-editing (2025)

Abstract: The GAMETRAPP project (2022-2025), funded by the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation and led by the University of Málaga, aims to introduce and promote post-editing (PE) practices of machine-translated research abstracts among Spanish scholars. To this aim, the GAMETRAPP project is developing a gamified environment —specifically, an escape room—integrated into a responsive web app. As part of the design of both the gamified environment and the web app, this paper presents the results of a questionnaire distributed to Spanish scholars in order to explore their perspectives and attitudes towards neural machine translation (NMT) and PE. A total of 253 responses were collected from scholars affiliated with 42 Spanish public universities. A two-stage participant selection process was applied: the analysis focuses on scholars who self-reported a CEFR level of C1 or C2 in English proficiency. (n = 152), and, within this group, a comparison was conducted between scholars from linguistic disciplines (23%, n = 35) and those from non-linguistic disciplines (77%, n = 117). Statistically significant differences between these groups were identified using the Mann-Whitney U test in IBM SPSS. The results indicate a widespread and continued use of language technologies, particularly those related to NMT. However, only 34.2% of scholars from non-linguistic disciplines are familiar with PE as a concept, although 59.8% report that they do post-edit their scientific abstracts. Furthermore, 62.9% of scholars from linguistic disciplines and 47.9% from non-linguistic disciplines believe it is necessary to create an app that trains scholars in post-editing Spanish abstracts into English. Sentiment analysis conducted with Atlas.ti on the 29 qualitative responses to the open-ended question suggests overall neutral attitudes toward NMT and PE for both groups of scholars. In conclusion, while both groups engage with NMT tools, there is a clear need for training—especially among scholars from non-linguistic disciplines—to familiarize them with PE concepts and to help develop basic PE literacy skills.

## introduction and related work technology, particularly artificial intelligence (ai), plays a major role in shaping modern life, enabling numerous applications transforming various fields @xcite . translation technology has advanced significantly, driven by innovations like nmt (sánchez ramos and rico pérez, 2020) and pre-trained large language models (llms) @xcite . these ai-based methods have led to the development of a new generation of tools for translation and language services, including real-time language translation and communication through conversational chatbots such as chatgpt @xcite @xcite . these myriads of resources and tools, combined with the growing globalization and interconnectivity, have led to nmt being deeply embedded in a wide range of professional, interpersonal, and social exchanges across the globe. as nmt is increasingly used by a wider number of people, initiatives such as the machine translation literacy project @xcite and the multitrainnmt project @xcite have emerged with the aim of promoting nmt, training in nmt literacy, and raising awareness about the critical use that this technology requires. one of the primary reasons for the growing demand for nmt arises from the increasing multilingualism in a society that requires seamless communication across multiple languages. however, this multilingualism clashes with the growing dominance of english as the lingua franca in research communication and international academic publishing @xcite . the dominance of english, coupled with the global rise of the publish-or-perish culture in academia, is pushing scholars from both anglophone and non-anglophone countries to publish in english. the latter are currently referred to as english as an additional language (eal) scholars @xcite in the case of english for research publication purposes @xcite . the disparities resulting from the use of english as the dominant language in scholarly publishing are becoming more evident across various disciplines @xcite . for instance, @xcite found that non-native english speakers spend considerably more time, effort, and money on reading and writing articles in english. to overcome the challenges of publishing in english and considering the improving quality of nmt output, scholars increasingly rely on mt-whether through nmt, llms, or chatbots-to write and translate their papers. despite the high quality of results, it is still recognized that mt output generally requires pe to achieve a publishable quality. defined, according to iso 18587:2017, as "editing and correcting the output of a machine translation", the combination of nmt+pe in scholar communication has already been explored. for instance, @xcite examined the use of nmt as a tool for composing academic texts in eal, working with a group of ten researchers. @xcite conducted a survey on the use of nmt by medical practitioners, subsequently analyzing their post-edits and assessing the final quality with the help of a professional proofreader. other studies, such as those by @xcite and parra escartín and @xcite , also conducted experiments aimed at exploring the relationship between nmt and pe, focusing on the quality and nature of the post-editing outcomes in each case. against the backdrop of scientific dissemination in english as eal and the use of nmt+pe, the gametrapp project (toledo-báez and noriega-santiáñez, 2024) is developing a web application that incorporates a gamified environment, specifically a virtual escape room, to introduce and promote the pe of research abstracts translated from iberian spanish to american english (l1 to eal). while other applications, such as kaninjo @xcite , have been developed to train users in pe, gametrapp stands out by introducing gamification as an innovative strategy to engage users in the pe learning process. a key aspect when designing both a gamified environment and a web app is focusing on user needs and motivation @xcite . since the potential users of the gametrappp gamified environment and web app are spanish scholars, a questionnaire was created and distributed to collect information on the methodology followed by scholars in spain when writing and/or translating abstracts of their scientific publications. for a participant-oriented study, it is common practice to use the term 'survey' to describe the study design, while the 'questionnaire' is seen as an instrument @xcite . a significant number of surveys and questionnaires about use of nmt and/or pe have already been conducted with professional translators (see @xcite @xcite @xcite and also with translation students @xcite and humanities students in general @xcite . however, aside from the aforementioned study by parra @xcite , surveys and questionnaires regarding the use of nmt and/or pe by non-translators or non-linguists remain relatively limited. @xcite explored how japanese nursing professionals used mt to access information from international journals. their questionnaire results showed that more than half of participants found mt usable, and the study concluded that language proficiency is a key factor for the effective use of mt. another study is @xcite , who interviewed nine scandinavian patent professionals about their use of raw nmt in their professional practice, concluding that their use of nmt was both widespread and long-term. the aim of this paper is to present the methodology and results of the questionnaire developed for the gametrapp project, with a particular focus on the similarities and differences between scholars from linguistic and non-linguistic disciplines. it serves as a report on the user needs analysis, reflecting the perspectives and attitudes of both groups of spanish scholars toward nmt and pe. ## conclusions this paper provides an overview of spanish scholars' perspectives and attitudes towards nmt and pe through a questionnaire in which 253 spanish scholars from 42 institutions participated. in order to analyze and present the questionnaire results, a two-stage participant selection process was applied. first, only participants who selfreported a cefr level of c1 or c2 in english proficiency (@xmath0, as these levels reflect advanced english language skills. within this group, a further distinction was made between 5 original quote in spanish: "la redacción previa ya sea en castellano o inglés es fundamental para tener un buen texto en inglés." 6 original quote in spanish: "siempre considero importante que la traducción automática debe corregir y ayudar al investigador a perfeccionar su nivel de inglés o en todo caso a simplificar la tarea de resumir scholars from linguistic disciplines (23%, @xmath1, @xmath2. to address rq1, data from our questionnaire indicate a widespread adoption of language technologies within the scientific community, with a particular preference for nmt tools among both scholars from non-linguistic disciplines (78.6%, @xmath3.4%, @xmath4. when compared to other studies, these results show a notable divergence. for instance, @xcite found that only 18% of professional translators reported using nmt, and more than half of the respondents (56%) considered nmt to be "still a problematic technology". in contrast, the study by @xcite reported significantly higher usage rates, with 50.2% of respondents using nmt daily and 22.3% using it several times a week. the discrepancy may be partly explained by the sixyear gap between them, reflecting the rapid evolution of nmt technologies. nevertheless, neither study fully aligns with the findings of the present research, where 71.4% of scholars from linguistic disciplines reported using nmt. when comparing our data on scholars from nonlinguistic fields with those reported in parra escartín et al. (2017) -which focused on medical practitioners using nmt for academic writing support-we observe a strong similarity in nmt usage (68% in our study vs. 78.6% in theirs). the study by @xcite , which also involved professionals in the health sciences, reports comparable findings: 65.8% of respondents use nmt to some extent, either 'occasionally' (43.4%) or 'always/almost always' (22.4%). these results align closely with those of nurminen (2020), which highlight the widespread and longterm use of raw mt among respondents. taken together, these findings suggest that reluctance and mistrust toward nmt are more pronounced among translation professionals and students than in other academic or professional fields. regarding rq2, our study revealed a notable lack of awareness of pe, particularly among scholars from non-linguistic disciplines, with (con revisión posterior). pero no considero que ninguna tecnología deba suplir la necesidad de cualquier investigador de tener un c1 de inglés. en definitiva, es importante que se haga un uso proactivo de la herramienta y no tanto pasivo." 7 original quote in spanish: "con las herramientas de ia no sé si una aplicación sería necesaria." 65.8% reporting unfamiliarity with the concept. however, a majority of them (73.5%) indicated that they had engaged in pe at some point to improve nmt output. furthermore, 59.8% of respondents from non-linguistic fields reported using pe specifically to enhance the quality of machinetranslated scientific abstracts. the only prior study offering data on specific pe usage in scholarly communication is that of parra escartín and @xcite , which indicates that 26% of respondents use nmt "to obtain a preliminary english version they could subsequently post-edit." however, the study does not clarify how these scholars engage in pe, making direct comparison with our pe-related findings difficult and, in most cases, not feasible. in relation to rq3, the results suggest that scholars from linguistic disciplines are more likely to view a training app for the pe of abstracts from spanish into english very positively. in contrast, scholars from non-linguistic disciplines tend to evaluate it more neutrally, though still with a generally positive outlook. as no previous studies have focused on the development of an app for pe, our results cannot be directly compared with existing research. our study has three main limitations that should be acknowledged. first, the total number of responses from scholars in linguistic disciplines was significantly smaller than that from scholars in non-linguistic fields. this imbalance was anticipated, as our focus was limited to a single area within the linguistic disciplines-namely, linguistics, translation, and language studiescompared to a total of 11 non-linguistic disciplines included in the study. second, the overall response rate for the open-ended question was notably low, which can be attributed to its voluntary and unstructured nature. third, the questionnaire did not offer respondents alternative methods for teaching basic pe skills. only one option was presented, which limited the opportunity to compare it with other potential approaches to introducing and promoting pe. the findings of this study point to at least two promising directions for future research. first, it would be valuable to explore alternative methods for teaching basic pe literacy skills, particularly to scholars from non-linguistic disciplines, as well as to other professionals or even the general public. gametrapp introduces gamification as an innovative strategy to engage users in the pe learning process, and further studies will be conducted to assess its effectiveness. second, it would be pertinent to investigate how pe literacy and skills evolve in the context of ai. the increasing use of nmt and llms for translation purposes could suggest that pe skills are becoming integrated into broader ai literacy (knowledge and skills) and ai competency (confidence and effectiveness) @xcite . the integration of ai literacy and competency will become increasingly essential for effectively and responsibly navigating the digital transformation, necessitating particular emphasis on pe.