IELTS Research Reports

Construct validity in the IELTS Academic Reading testMANAGEMENT: One thing [students] struggle with is that it’s actually a summary task.I’m after a set of arguments. I’m not after [their own] opinions which can throw them a little.We tell them that comes in later.Summaries of research findingsA different version of the summary task was that focused not on the identification of the argumentscontained within expository texts, but rather on the purposes and findings contained within empiricalresearch studies. In Sample A17 below, an essay set in the Biology subject, a major component ofthe work for students is to “summarise a range of recent studies” concerned with the search for a curefor malaria.MalariaWhy do botanists study the malarial parasite (Plasmodium) and how do they hope to find a curefor this disease? In your response, you should summarise a range of recent studies, focusing onthe kinds of drugs currently being tested, and why.Sample A17. Essay task - BiologyAnother example of a task requiring students to document a series of research findings is the followingfrom the Linguistics subject (Sample A18). In this instance, students need to conduct their ownresearch, but first of all to place their study in the context of previous work done in the area, involving“a summary of earlier studies in the subject”.Speech act researchThe purpose of this assignment is for you to collect and analyse speech act data. You will beexpected to design a brief Discourse Completion Task (DCT) which elicits apologies or requests.Write your paper with the following sections (including inter alia):Introduction (about 400 words): Talk about the speech act you’re investigating, and the role ofpoliteness for realising it. Define your terms, and summarise some of the earlier studies on thesubject (you may use your reader and lecture notes for this).Sample A18. Research project task (extract) - LinguisticsLOCAL + INTERPRETATIVEOur category of ‘interpretation’ is a broad one and, as explained earlier, has been defined for thepurposes of the study as “those forms of engagement with reading material that go beyond a literalcomprehension of a text’s propositional content”. In this sense, as we pointed out, it is a more readerfocusedthan text-focused form of engagement.Under the ‘local-literal’ category discussed earlier, we saw a range of tasks that were focused onstudents showing their understanding of key concepts in the discipline (eg ‘thermal energy’ inPhysics; ‘speech acts’ in Linguistics; ‘value configuration’ in Business Studies). Tasks falling underthis new category, ‘local-interpretative’, had a similar focus on key disciplinary concepts, but weredistinguishable from these largely comprehension-based tasks in their requirement that studentsIELTS Research Reports Volume 11235