Time, Edits, and Effort: Quantifying Cognitive Load in Post-Editing with EduApp Logs
Description
This study investigates post-editing behaviour in translator training through automatically logged process metrics, exploring how temporal and technical indicators may approximate relative cognitive effort. Using 20 valid EduApp task-level records drawn from a classroom cohort of 32 undergraduate translation students, the study analyses edits per minute, character throughput, and edit density to identify provisional behavioural profiles. Correlational analysis shows a strong inverse relationship between time and throughput, suggesting that longer task duration may reflect greater processing demands, task difficulty, or extended evaluation, although the logged metrics remain indirect proxies rather than direct measures of cognitive load. Exploratory profiling distinguishes three task-level patterns - fast minimalists, deliberate revisers, and rewriters - each reflecting a different balance between fluency, evaluation, and revision intensity. The findings suggest that transparently and ethically captured process indicators can support classroom discussion of post-editing effort, strengthen learner reflection on machine-translation literacy, and help connect experimental cognitive translation studies with pedagogical practice.