IELTS Research Reports

Construct validity in the IELTS Academic Reading testdon’t really challenge the ideas – we sort of present them as these are the ideas you need toknow, and the last two are not important for us.ARCHITECTURE: I think all have some importance, but apart from the first one (i.e.having a basic comprehension of key information in a text), they are not as important in thissubject, as they might be in other subjects.The main picture to emerge from these commentaries was that the important type of reading in thesemore technical disciplines was that related to basic comprehension of material. From these informants,it was generally felt that what was crucial in the first year of study in their disciplines was for studentsto come away with a good working knowledge of foundational ideas and concepts – and not to bespending too much time deciding whether such ideas were valid or not. A number pointed out thatwhilst more ‘interpretative’ forms of reading were clearly important in students’ overall academicdevelopment, they had less obvious relevance in the early stages of training in the discipline. Amongthese more interpretative forms included in the list of skills, the least relevant, they thought, were thosethat involved ‘critical evaluation’ of material. As one informant explained it: “In the first year, we wantstudents to accept certain things more-or-less as read, and to hold off with too much critical scrutiny ofthem at this stage”.It was explained however by several, that such a profile of reading skills was a specific feature of thefirst years of undergraduate programs, and that at more advanced levels in these disciplines, the othermore interpretative types of reading had a much greater role to play.BIOLOGY: As students move through the discipline I guess some of the things that werepreviously taken for granted start to become a bit more contentious – and we see these otherskills like critically evaluating texts (item 5) coming more into play. Certainly students needto have a critical eye out when they read research articles, and the sorts of claims that aremade in these.The view expressed from the more humanities-oriented areas represented a clear contrast. Forinformants in these areas, all items on the list were thought to be important, and those at the lower end,particularly so. A common theme here was that in one’s teaching, the more ‘literal’-based skill areaswere taken for granted to some extent, and that much of what students were expected to do simplyassumed an understanding of basic concepts in the field.LINGUISTICS: I think I make certain assumptions about those items further up the list,like being able to understand the ideas we present (item 1). That is, that students come to mycourse able to do these things.MANAGEMENT: Having a basic comprehension (item 1), well obviously that’s reallyimportant. If [the students] can’t do that, the rest [of the skills] become a bit redundant.For these academics, the focus was squarely on the more interpretative reading skills. Among thoseon the list, the idea of being critical of texts (item 5), and of being able to draw on multiple sources tosupport an argument (item 7) had particular resonance.LINGUISTICS: The really important [skills] on the course are definitely critically evaluate(item 5) and drawing on ideas from range of texts to support argumentation (item 7). Theyare all important but those are the important formative skills for this subject. That’s really thepoint that I try to get students to by the end of semester.IELTS Research Reports Volume 11225