Iranian Students' Performance on the IELTS: A Question of Achievement (original) (raw)
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The Effect of Reading Processing Tasks on the Iranian IELTS Candidates' Reading Scores
The process of language learning is a complex process, associated with many factors. Due to the complexity of language learning process and its different dimensions, any elaboration should be narrowed down. Therefore, the present study aimed to see whether using reading comprehension tasks could significantly improve the students' reading comprehension ability or not. To this purpose, 72 English students were selected. After receiving the treatment and using reading comprehension tasks, their reading abilities were compared to those who had received the traditional teaching process. The results demonstrated that those students who had received the reading comprehension processing tasks performed significantly better than those who had received traditional reading approach in the control group. The findings of the study have some implications for language teachers as well as syllabus designers to improve reading ability of language learners.
2011
The study reported here was concerned with the issue of test development and validation as it relates to the IELTS Academic Reading test. Investigation was made of the suitability of items on the test in relation to the reading and general literacy requirements of university study. This was researched in two ways - through a survey of reading tasks in the two domains, and through interviews with academic staff from a range of disciplines. Tasks in the two domains were analysed using a taxonomic framework, adapted from Weir and Urquhart (1998), with a focus on two dimensions of difference: level of engagement, referring to the level of text with which a reader needs to engage to respond to a task (local vs global); type of engagement referring to the way (or ways) a reader needs to engage with texts on the task (literal vs interpretative). The analysis found evidence of both similarities and differences between the reading requirements in the two domains. The majority of the IELTS ta...
Journal of Language and Education
Although IELTS is coordinated under a framework for test development and validation, there is some controversy about exam results’ correlation with students’ post-admission intellectual, academic and professional performance. The theoretical part of the research aims to investigate the extent to which the IELTS reading component relates meaningfully to interpretations of validity. The empirical part addresses questions about perceptions of the impact of the IELTS reading preparation on adjustment to the challenges of academia and further academic performance and variances in these perceptions depending on the area of study and the level of language mastery. While having quite different views on assessing IELTS validity, the researchers agree that academic success is enhanced through and based on extensive substantive reading. The methodology relied on both qualitative and quantitative data derived from an anonymous online questionnaire: 133 international students with Russian citize...
IELTS ACADEMIC READING MODULE TEST: VALIDITY AND RELIABILITY
The testing of reading comprehension seems deceptively simple when compared to the testing of other abilities. The basic problem is that the language tester is expected to set tasks that will not only lead the candidate to use reading skills but will also result in behavior that provides clear evidence of the successful use of those skills. This paper aims to evaluate the IELTS Academic Reading Module Test in detail, examining its validity and reliability and discussing how far its format, operations, conditions, and techniques meet its purpose. The paper focuses mainly on the test scoring rules, which appear to be strict in terms of spelling, grammar, and the number of words required for written responses. It concludes with some recommendations on ways in which the validity and reliability of IELTS reading scoring rules could be improved.
—This study investigates the causes of the reading difficulty as perceived by undergraduate and postgraduate EFL learners. 34 postgraduate and 36 undergraduate students at the University of Isfahan took part in this study. In particular, this study tries to know whether there is any difference between the perceptions of these two groups of learners. A questionnaire synthesized Eskey (1986), and Bernhardt (1991), cited in Lin (2002), was used as the main instrument for analysis of knowledge categories affecting reading comprehension. The questionnaire considered three general categories of linguistic, conceptual and socio-cultural knowledge as the building blocks of reading. It consists of four multiple-choice questions, all accepting multiple responses. The results of the frequency analysis showed that postgraduate students, with higher level of language proficiency, attached less importance to linguistic knowledge as the factor helping reading comprehension success, but most importance to socio-cultural and conceptual knowledge. With the decrease of linguistic knowledge; however, undergraduates attached better reading comprehension to linguistic knowledge rather than socio-linguistic and conceptual knowledge.
IELTS ACADEMIC READING ACHIEVEMENT: THE CONTRIBUTION OF INFERENCE-MAKING AND EVALUATION OF ARGUMENTS
The pivotal undertaking of education today is to endow individuals with the capacity to be able to think flexibly, reason rationally, and have open minds to be able to evaluate and interpret situations. In line with the studies demonstrating the positive relationship between higher-order thinking skills and academic achievement, this study aimed to particularly examine the impact of the two subcomponents of critical thinking, i.e., inference-making and evaluation of arguments on academic IELTS candidates' reading achievements. To achieve the purpose of the study, one hundred and seven IELTS candidates (from different institutes in Mashhad, a city in north of Iran) were asked to complete two tests of the Persian version of the ‚Watson-Glaser's Critical Thinking Appraisal‛ after being administered an IELTS reading comprehension test. The results showed that there is a positive relationship between IETLS reading score and EFL learners' inference-making and evaluation of argument. Subsequent data analyses demonstrated that among the variables, inference making is the more powerful predictor of IELTS reading achievement. In addition, the results revealed that the two mentioned variables can predict about 10 percent of IELTS reading achievement. This study has some implications for educators and administrators to take full advantage of these associations by establishing guiding principles for enhancing IELTS candidates' inference-making and evaluation of arguments.
Studies in Educational Evaluation, 2019
Cognitive diagnostic assessment (CDA) allows for diagnosing second language (L2) learners' strengths and weaknesses of attributes in a specific domain. Exploring the little-known territory of CDA, the current study retrofitted the reading section of the International English Language Testing System (IELTS) with a cognitive diagnostic model (CDM). It aimed to identify the attributes involved in successfully implementing IELTS reading, analyze the overall and individual test-takers' reading performance, and, finally, explore the IELTS reading differences of Iranian students in engineering and veterinary domains. Based on think-aloud protocols and expert judgement, an initial Q-matrix was developed. Using R package CDM, the generalized deterministic inputs, noisy "and" gate (G-DINA) model was applied to IELTS reading data to refine and validate the initial Q-matrix and estimate the mastery probabilities of 1025 test-takers on each attribute. The final Q-matrix consisted of 6 attributes assumed to be involved in IELTS reading. Moreover, the overall test-takers and the individuals demonstrated different mastery/non-mastery across the 6 IELTS reading attributes on both macro and micro levels. Further, significant differences were found between IELTS reading performances of Iranian engineering and veterinary students. The findings supported the assumption that CDA can provide instructors and IELTS candidates with detailed diagnostic feedback to promote test-takers' IELTS reading performance.
This study investigated the validity of an achievement test as a measure for Iranian English as a foreign language (EFL) learners’ reading comprehension strategies at the pre-intermediate level at Ilam University. Different reading strategies have been introduced to aid learners in the process of comprehension, four of which, namely making connections, visualizing, inferencing (inferring), and questioning the author were selected for the purpose of the study. Adopting a reductionist approach to collecting validity evidence for the sake of practicality, the researchers made an attempt to focus merely on construct validity based on the Bachman and Palmer’s (1996) framework. The evidence to examine the construct validity of the developed test was gathered through the differential-groups design, which involves selecting a sample with two mastery and non-mastery groups. The results demonstrate that the developed achievement test is a valid measure to assess the above-mentioned reading comprehension strategies for Iranian EFL learners.