IELTS Research Reports

Construct validity in the IELTS Academic Reading testSample reviewThe following text is a sample review in the manner of the debate review exercise (see sample X).Study the text carefully. It should be used as an indicative guide to the sort of tone, analysis andstructure expected of such a review. The references and quotations used are fictional and solelyfor illustrative purposes.Sample A30. Exercise – ManagementA different type of text analysis task was one where students needed to adopt a ‘critical’ approachto language use. Examples of such tasks were confined to the Media Studies subject, such asthe following ‘Media Watch’ task (Sample A31), requiring students to analyse different mediarepresentations of a particular story or issue.Media WatchGroups of 4–5 students will choose to look at one contemporary issue currently represented onmedia outlets – eg issues to do with politics, economics, religious affairs, sport music, celebrityor even the media itself. You should consult a variety of media outlets eg print media (includingonline sites), television news and current affairs.The main purpose of this assignment is to analyse the similarities and differences in thecoverage of the one story or issue that the different media organisations put out. Pay specialattention to the language used and how this might involve distortion, bias, plagiarism orunethical reporting.Sample A31. Assignment task – Media StudiesThe focus of such a task, as the rubric indicates, is very much on the way that language is used toconstruct particular representations of events. The lecturer in the subject described the approach thus:MEDIA STUDIES: In the course we’re interested in students becoming deconstructivereaders. The emphasis is not so much on what the meanings of the texts are, and whether Iagree with them, but rather how meaning is being created. I want them to focus on how thewords used in a text can carry particular nuances of meaning, or how images are used tocreate certain effects.Such readings, which operate arguably at the most ‘interpretative’ end of our literal– interpretativecontinuum fit very much with recent developments in language analysis including critical discourseanalysis (Fairclough, 1998) and critical literacy (Gee, 2008).Summary of academic task analysisThe analysis of the reading tasks showed a wide variety of reading requirements across the disciplinesinvestigated. As we saw, instances of tasks fitting all four configurations in our matrix were identified(i.e. local-literal; global-interpretative etc). Because of the largely qualitative nature of the study, it isnot possible to make any definitive statements about which of these four reading modes was the mostprominent overall. There are however, a number of broad generalisations that can be made:IELTS Research Reports Volume 11241