IELTS Research Reports

Tim Moore, Janne Morton and Steve PriceThe nature of reading on coursesAlong with variation in the quantity and type of reading material prescribed on courses, wereperceived differences in the ways that students needed to engage with this material. Early piloting ofthe research suggested to us that it would not necessarily be a straightforward task for academic staffto expound at length on different types of required reading skills, nor indeed for them to be able todistinguish these skills in any substantive way. This was partly because the characterisation of suchskills constitutes arguably an ‘insider’ educational discourse, one related to the study of academicliteracy per se, and a discourse not necessarily readily accessible to academics working within theirown disciplinary specialisations. As a way of facilitating discussion around this point in the interviews,it was decided to provide a list of possible reading skills (‘abilities’) drawn from the literature(Alderson 2000; Grabe, 1999), and to ask informants to comment on which of these they thought wererelevant to study to their subject area (see below). This list seeks to capture some of the distinctions wehave used in our analytical framework (i.e. type and level of engagement).Ability to■■have a basic comprehension of key information in a text (LOCAL + /LITERAL +)■■summarise the main ideas in a text in one’s own words (GLOBAL + /LITERAL +)■■understand an idea for the purpose of applying it to a particular situation or context(LOCAL +/ INTERPRETATIVE + )■■understand the purpose for why a text may have been written (GLOBAL +/INTERPRETATIVE + )■■critically evaluate the ideas in a text (GLOBAL +/ INTERPRETATIVE + )■■identify a range of texts relevant to a topic (GLOBAL +/ LITERAL + )■■draw on ideas from a range of texts to support one’s own argument (GLOBAL +/INTERPRETATIVE + )Given the relatively small sample size in interviews, the results are reported qualitatively (ratherthan quantitatively), with a focus on the key skill areas commented on by informants. Again basicdifferences were observed in the perceptions of academics across the disciplines. It was noted, forexample, that those in the ‘harder’ disciplines thought skills towards the top of the list had the mostobvious relevance to study in their subject area. The following are a sample of the responses from themore technical areas.ENGINEERING: In Engineering I think we’re mainly concerned with basic comprehension(item 1) and summary skills (item 2). My sense of summary is students being able toconvey the ideas back to us. So they need to understand the ideas and concepts, and reportthem back.PHYSICS: I would be emphasising those skills more towards the top of the list. So wedon’t really ask students to identify a range of texts relevant to a topic (item 6) nor draw onideas from a range of texts to support one’s own argument (item 7). This is because studentsare not really making arguments at a first-year level. There are not so many things that arecontestable at this level.BIOLOGY: Well certainly basic comprehension and summarising of ideas (items 1 & 2),but understanding the purpose of why text is written is not important (item 4) Criticallyevaluate ideas (item 5), well only to a very limited extent – in most of first-year biology we224 www.ielts.org