IELTS Research Reports

Tim Moore, Janne Morton and Steve Price4 FINDINGSThe bulk of the research report is devoted to describing the findings of the study. In the first part ofthis section, findings from the IELTS task analysis are described. In the second part, we outline thefindings from the academic task analysis and interviews.4.1 IELTS reading tasksThe IELTS corpus compiled for the study consisted of a total of 13 tests, with each of these tests madeup, on average, of three reading testlets (i.e. organised around three separate reading passages). In all,the total number of reading tasks across the corpus was 108, comprising 494 individual items.A preliminary analysis found a variety of task types, with some featuring regularly in the corpus, andothers less so. Table 4 lists the different task types identified, along with their relative frequencies.The figures in the left hand column show the total number of uses of each task type in the corpus, andthose in the centre column, the total number of items under each of these types. Thus in the table, wecan see for example, that the True/False/Not given format was used 23 times in the corpus, whichincluded a total of 130 individual items (an average rate of 5.6 items per use of task type – see righthand column). Note that the order of frequency of task types in the table is based on the ‘total numberof items’ – see centre column.Task typeNo of occurrencesof task type in corpus(% in bracket)Total no of itemsunder task type((% in brackets)1. True/False/Not given 23 (21) 130 (26) 5.62. Section-summary match 18 (17) 80 (16) 4.4Average no ofitems per useof task3. Gapped summary 14 (13) 78 (16) 5.64. Information-category match 12 (11) 61 (12) 5.15. Multiple choice 15 (14) 47 (10) 3.16. Short answer 8 (7) 33 (7) 4.17. Other (eg sentence completion,information transfer etc.)18 (17) 65 (17) 3.6Total 108 (100%) 494 (100%) 4.6Table 4. Task type by frequencyIn what follows, a description is provided for each of the task types identified, along with discussion ofhow each relates to the ‘level of engagement – type of engagement’ dimensions used for the analysis.Most space is devoted to describing and analysing the more frequently- occurring types. It is noted thatin the corpus assembled for the study, the first three task types – True/False/Not given, Section-summarymatch, Gapped summary – accounted overall for more than half of the total items (57%). The category‘Other’ shown at the bottom of the table included a range of additional task types, with each of theseconstituting less than 5% of items. No individual discussion is provided for these task-types.200 www.ielts.org