Performance Scoring Rubric (0.0–5.0 Scale), Levels of Competency, and the 3.5 Benchmark

Performance Scoring Rubric (0.0-5.0 Scale), Levels of Competency, and the 3.5 Benchmark

Quick Answer: The EIPA Performance Test is rated on a 0-to-5 Likert-type scale applied to each individual sub-skill, then averaged into a composite reported to one decimal place. The official Boys Town anchors are 5 = Advanced, 4 = Advanced Intermediate, 3 = Intermediate, 2 = Advanced Beginner, 1 = Beginner, 0 = No Skill. Boys Town publishes a narrative Profile of Skills at Each Rating Level of the EIPA for Levels 1.0 through 5.0 — it does not publish composite percentage-accuracy bands, and the published profile states plainly that Level 1.0 and Level 2.0 interpreters are not recommended for classroom interpreting and that a Level 3.0 interpreter needs continued supervision and continuing education. Most state education agencies set their hiring cut at 3.5, a point that falls between the Intermediate and Advanced Intermediate anchors. The current evaluation form scores 38 sub-skills across four assessment areas.

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1. The 0-to-5 Rating Scale Architecture

The EIPA Performance Test does not produce a pass/fail verdict or a raw percentage. Each sub-skill on the evaluation form receives a whole-number rating from 5 down to 0, and the composite is the average of the applicable sub-skill ratings, reported to one decimal place (3.2, 3.5, 4.1, and so on). That is why candidates receive decimal scores even though evaluators only assign whole numbers to individual items.

The official anchors, taken from the Boys Town Glossary of EIPA Terminology, are:

Two features of this scoring model are heavily tested:

• The scale is criterion-referenced, not curved. Performance is judged against behavioral descriptors of linguistic accuracy, comprehension, and prosody — never against how other candidates in the same testing window performed.
• NA items are excluded from the average. If a sub-skill does not apply to the language or sign system being evaluated — for example, Consistent Use of English Morphological Markers, which applies only to English sign systems — the evaluator marks it NA, and that item is dropped from the averaged score rather than counted as a zero.

[!CAUTION] Exam Trap: Confusing the anchor names with the score you need. The word Advanced is the anchor for 5, not 4, and Advanced Intermediate is the anchor for 4, not 3.5. A 3.5 composite is not an official named level at all; it is a state-chosen cut point that sits between the Intermediate (3) and Advanced Intermediate (4) anchors.

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2. Competency Levels Defined: The Official Profile of Skills

Boys Town publishes a narrative profile for each whole-number rating level. The following summaries follow that published profile closely.

Level 1.0: Beginner

Very limited sign vocabulary with frequent production errors; at times the production may be incomprehensible. Grammatical structure tends to be nonexistent. The individual can communicate only very simple ideas and has great difficulty comprehending signed communication. Sign production lacks prosody and use of space for the vast majority of the interpreted message. Boys Town states that an individual at this level is not recommended for classroom interpreting.

Level 2.0: Advanced Beginner

Only basic sign vocabulary, and those limitations interfere with communication. Lack of fluency and sign production errors are typical and often interfere with communication; the interpreter hesitates as if searching for vocabulary. Frequent grammatical errors appear, although basic signed sentences remain intact — more complex grammatical structures are typically difficult. The individual reads signs at the word and simple-sentence level, but complete or complex sentences often require repetitions and repairs. Prosody and use of space appear, but inconsistently and often incorrectly. Boys Town states that an individual at this level is not recommended for classroom interpreting.

Level 3.0: Intermediate

Knowledge of basic vocabulary, but the candidate may lack vocabulary for technical, complex, or academic topics. Signing is fairly fluent with some consistent prosody, but pacing is still slow with infrequent pauses for vocabulary or complex structures. Sign production errors appear but generally do not interfere with communication. Grammatical production may still be incorrect for complex structures while remaining intact for routine and simple language. The candidate comprehends signed messages but may need repetition and assistance, and voiced translation often lacks the depth and subtleties of the original message. Boys Town states that an individual at this level can communicate very basic classroom content but may incorrectly interpret complex information, and that an interpreter at this level needs continued supervision and should be required to participate in continuing education in interpreting.

Level 4.0: Advanced Intermediate

Broad use of vocabulary with generally correct sign production, plus good strategies for conveying information when a specific sign is not in the candidate's vocabulary. Grammatical constructions are generally clear and consistent, though complex information may still pose occasional problems. Prosody is good with appropriate facial expression most of the time, but the candidate may still struggle with facial expression in complex sentences and with adverbial non-manual markers. Fluency may deteriorate when rate or complexity increases. Space is used consistently most of the time, but complex constructions or extended discourse cohesion may still pose problems. Comprehension of most signed messages at a normal rate is good, though translation may lack some complexity of the original. Boys Town states that an individual at this level can convey much of the classroom content but may have difficulty with complex topics or rapid turn-taking.

Level 5.0: Advanced

Broad and fluent vocabulary with a wide range of strategies for communicating new words and concepts. Sign production errors are minimal and never interfere with comprehension. Prosody is correct for grammatical, non-manual, and affective purposes, and complex grammatical constructions are typically not a problem. Comprehension of signed messages is very good, communicating all details of the original message. Boys Town states that an individual at this level is capable of clearly and accurately conveying the majority of interactions within the classroom.

EIPA Competency Matrix

[!NOTE] Every percentage figure you see attached to a whole composite score in third-party EIPA prep material should be treated with suspicion. The Boys Town glossary does give sample percentages inside individual item rubrics — for the item Stress/Emphasis for Important Words or Phrases, a 4 is described as conveying stress roughly 85% of the time and a 3 as correct approximately 65-70% of the time — but it immediately warns that the percentages listed would not be the same for each skill being assessed. There is no published composite accuracy percentage for a 3.5.

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3. The 3.5 Benchmark: Why States Chose a Half-Step

If the official anchors are whole numbers, why do so many states hire at 3.5?

Because the composite is an average of 38 sub-skills, it lands on decimals, and states needed a cut point that separates an interpreter who is still fundamentally Intermediate from one approaching Advanced Intermediate. Boys Town's own profile supplies the rationale: a Level 3.0 interpreter "may incorrectly interpret complex information resulting in a message that is not always clear" and "needs continued supervision." That description is incompatible with the reality of a solitary mainstream placement, where no second adult is present to catch a distorted interpretation of a chemistry lecture or a civics debate.

A 3.5 composite means the candidate is averaging above the Intermediate descriptors across the form — typically scoring 4s on vocabulary breadth and basic grammar while still taking 3s on the hardest spatial and prosodic items. States treat that as the floor at which a deaf student's access to the general curriculum is plausible without constant adult repair.

Verified state examples, all drawn from state regulatory language rather than aggregator sites:

• Colorado requires 3.5 or higher on the EIPA performance assessment for initial educational interpreter authorization (and 4.0 or higher on the EIPA-Cued Speech assessment, or a passing CLTNCE score, for cued language transliterators).
• Washington, California, and Pennsylvania each set 3.5 as the minimum for educational interpreters.
• South Carolina law bars a local education agency from employing an educational interpreter below a 3.5 rating.

Requirements are not uniform, they change, and some states set no standard at all. The National Association of Interpreters in Education maintains a state-by-state map of minimum requirements pulled from regulatory documents; that map, plus your own state education agency, is the authority for your jurisdiction — never a test-prep summary.

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4. Who Rates Your Recording

Your recorded samples are sent to the EIPA Diagnostic Center at Boys Town National Research Hospital in Omaha, Nebraska, where a three-member evaluation team specifically trained in administering the EIPA rates the interpreting samples. At least one member of the team evaluating your recording is deaf. Boys Town describes its evaluators as master's-level individuals who hold dual RID certification, training in teaching interpretation, or both. Your evaluation is confidential.

What the evaluation team returns to you is not a single number. Boys Town states that evaluated interpreters receive:

• all pre-evaluation paperwork;
• each EIPA evaluator's scoring form — meaning you see three independent judgments, not one blended verdict;
• an EIPA summary form highlighting strengths and areas targeted for professional development;
• a glossary of terms explaining each area evaluated.

The deaf evaluator's presence on the team is a design decision, not a courtesy. A recording that reads as fluent to a hearing observer can still show awkward spatial layout, English-shaped mouthing, or rhythm that a deaf rater identifies immediately as linguistically defective.

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5. The 38 Sub-Skills Across Four Assessment Areas

The current EIPA evaluation form, mirrored by the Boys Town Glossary of EIPA Terminology, organizes scoring into four assessment areas containing 38 individual sub-skill items.

Area I — Interpreter Product: Voice to Sign (12 items)

Stress and emphasis for important words or phrases; affect and emotions; register; sentence and clausal boundaries (not run-on); sentence types and clausal boundaries indicated (yes/no questions, wh- questions, if/then, topicalization); production and use of non-manual adverbial and adjectival markers; use of verb directionality and the pronominal system; comparison/contrast, sequence and cause/effect; location and relationship using the ASL classifier system; follows the grammar of ASL or PSE; consistent use of English morphological markers (English sign systems only); clearly mouths the speaker's English (if appropriate).

Area II — Interpreter Product: Sign to Voice (10 items)

Reading the signer's signs; reading fingerspelling; register; non-manual behaviors and ASL morphology; speech production (rate, rhythm, fluency, volume); sentence and clausal boundaries indicated (not run-on speech); sentence types; emphasis on important words and phrases plus affect and emotions; correct English word selection; adds no extraneous words or sounds to the message.

Area III — Vocabulary (9 items)

Amount of sign vocabulary; signs made correctly (palm orientation, handshape, location, movement); fluency; vocabulary consistent with the targeted communication method; key vocabulary represented; production of fingerspelling; spelled correctly; appropriate use of fingerspelling; production of numbers.

Area IV — Overall Factors: Message Processing (7 items)

Appropriate eye contact and movement; developed a sense of the whole message (voice to sign); developed a sense of the whole message (sign to voice); demonstrated processing decalage (lag time) appropriately voice to sign; demonstrated processing decalage appropriately sign to voice; follows principles of discourse mapping; indicates who is speaking.

Two structural consequences follow directly from this layout:

1. Vocabulary is a whole assessment area, not a footnote. Nine of 38 items — nearly a quarter of the form — concern sign vocabulary, fingerspelling production and legibility, spelling accuracy, and number production. Candidates who assume the test is mostly about grammar systematically under-prepare fingerspelling and numbers.
2. Sign-to-voice carries the same structural weight as expressive work. Ten items measure receptive skill and spoken English output. A candidate who is strong expressively and weak receptively cannot average their way past the weak half, because both halves are averaged into one composite.

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6. Realistic K-12 Classroom Scenarios

Scenario A: Strong Vocabulary, Collapsed Space

In a 4th-grade social studies lesson comparing Northern and Southern economies before the Civil War, a candidate signs individual vocabulary cleanly. But when the teacher explains trade between the North, the South, and Europe, the candidate places all three entities in the same central signing space with no distinct loci and no comparison/contrast structure.

• Evaluator impact: Low ratings land on Area I items — Comparison/Contrast, Sequence and Cause/Effect, Location and Relationship Using the ASL Classifier System — and on Area IV Follows Principles of Discourse Mapping.
• Outcome: Strong Area III vocabulary ratings cannot rescue the composite, because roughly half the form is measuring exactly the structures that collapsed. The diagnostic report will name the spatial items explicitly, which is what makes it usable for a development plan.

Scenario B: Averaging Into a 3.5

In a 6th-grade mathematics lesson on coordinate planes, a candidate maintains a workable lag time, anchors the x-axis and y-axis spatially, and plots coordinates with descriptive classifiers. Two technical terms produce brief fingerspelling hesitations.

• Outcome: The candidate takes 4s on most Area I grammar items and Area III vocabulary items, and 3s on fingerspelling production and one decalage item. The average lands in the mid-3s — a passing composite in a 3.5 state, and a clear signal about which two items to target before any retake.

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7. Exam Traps and Scoring Vulnerabilities

• Trap 1: Believing expressive skill compensates for weak voicing. Area II contributes 10 of the 38 averaged items. A 4.0 expressive profile paired with 2.5 receptive ratings averages down, not up.
• Trap 2: Inventing signs instead of fingerspelling. Inventing an idiosyncratic sign for mitochondria damages Area III (vocabulary consistent with the targeted communication method, key vocabulary represented) and, as the content standards note, makes the student's linguistic system unique from that of deaf peers and adults. The expected behavior is clear fingerspelling plus conceptual expansion where appropriate.
• Trap 3: Assuming NA items hurt you. They do not. If you test in ASL, the English-morphology item is marked NA and simply leaves the average. Choosing a sign system you do not actually use in order to "unlock" more items is the error, not the NA itself.