IELTS Research Reports

Construct validity in the IELTS Academic Reading testacademic staff involved in the teaching of courses covered in i). Findings from the research are usedto make suggestions about how the IELTS Academic Reading Test could be adapted to make it moreclosely resemble the modes of reading required in formal academic settings.2 REVIEW OF LITERATUREThe literature in the fields of reading research and reading assessment research is vast and complex. Inthe following section, we review briefly those areas thought to have particular relevance to the currentstudy. These include the idea of construct validity; theoretical models of reading; and inventoriesof reading skills and strategies. We begin with a brief review of the IELTS Academic Reading Test,including an account some of the changes that have been made to the test over the 20 years of its use.2.1 The IELTS Academic Reading TestThe IELTS system in its current form provides two different reading tests: a general training moduleand an academic module. The general training module is designed for a variety of cohorts and assesses“basic survival skills in a broad social and educational context”, while the academic module is said to“assess the English language skills required for academic study or professional recognition” (IELTS,2007, p. iii). The present study is concerned only with the latter of these modules. According to testspecifications, the skills tested in the IELTS Academic Reading include: following instructions, findingmain ideas, identifying the underlying concept, identifying relationships between the main ideas, anddrawing logical inferences (cited in Alderson, 2000 p 206; IELTS, 1996).An IELTS Academic Reading Test is typically comprised of three sections (or testlets), each organisedaround a separate reading passage. These passages, which average about 750 words in length, aredrawn from a range of sources including magazines, journals, books and newspapers, with topicsdesigned to be of general interest, written for a non-specialist audience. Accompanying the readingpassages are a range of tasks (40 in total) used to test students comprehension of material in the 60minutes allocated. These tasks or techniques are characterised by IELTS (1999) as follows:■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■multiple choiceshort answer questionssentence completionnotes/summary /diagram/flow chart/table completionchoosing from a heading bank for identified paragraphs/sections of textidentification of writer’s view/attitudes/claimsclassificationmatching listsmatching phrases.Alderson (2000) notes that an “interesting” feature of the IELTS Reading Test is its use of multiplemethods to test understanding of any one passage. This is a strength he suggests because in real life,readers typically respond to reading texts in many different ways (p 206). The Official IELTS PracticeMaterials (2007) include the following range of tasks used with each reading passage:IELTS Research Reports Volume 11189