Fostering interprofessional reasoning in interpreter education: an ACE-III-based pedagogical intervention

In interpreter-mediated cognitive screening tests, some language-based task instructions may require adaptation and explicit coordination between interpreter and clinician. This study examines whether a pedagogical intervention based on the Addenbrooke’s Cognitive Examination (ACE-III) can heighten trainee interpreters’ awareness of the interprofessional reasoning required to handle these instructions. Informed by a metacognitive model of interprofessional competence, the intervention involved thirty-one postgraduate interpreting students across five cohorts who completed an audio-recorded ACE-III-based role play framed by a pre- and post-activity questionnaire. Quantitative results suggest greater recognition of the importance of understanding the goal behind task instructions and interpreter-clinician coordination, alongside lower agreement that interpreters should avoid direct communication with clinicians or bear full responsibility for successful communication. Qualitative analysis identified four response types in trainees’ rendering of language-based ACE-III task instructions, reflecting different degrees of orientation towards interprofessional alignment. The findings suggest that simulations based on demanding real-life encounters may help make the collaborative demands of such settings more visible to trainees, although this potential should be considered alongside some pedagogical considerations.