IELTS Research Reports

Anthony Green and Roger Hawkeywriters’ own flow-charts of their whole item-writing process, from text search to adapted text andaccompanying items in Table 3) that topic interest and web searches are key initiating steps, as ispublic domain IELTS information accessed via the IELTS website and IELTS test preparation material.Table 2 below summarises the characteristics of target IELTS-type texts as interpreted by the threeparticipants and the number of mentions of each as counted from the transcript of the discussion. Itwill be noted from the table that IELTS texts tend to be perceived as likely to be on subjects of popularinterest presented in a formal, report-like format, academic in tone, but not so technical that nonspecialistreaders would be handicapped in understanding them. The three participants differ interestinglyacross the text criterial characteristics used in Table 2 as potentially significant in this part of thediscussion. Mary, for example, is apparently more concerned with the characteristics of IELTS texts froman assessment point of view. Victoria, perhaps influenced by her experience as an IELTS writing paperAssistant Principal Examiner, appears more confident in her interpretation of what IELTS texts are likethan the other two non-experienced item writers (see her generally higher criterion counts).4.1.2 Participant text search treatment and item development: flowcharts and discussionsWe now analyse more qualitatively the non-experienced item writers’ discussion session of their itemwriting processes. These deliberations had been recorded, transcribed and coded by topic before thequantitative summary analysis as presented in Tables 1 and 2 above. Table 3 below summarises the morequalitative inductive description here, allowing further inferences to be drawn on the processes involvedin efforts by the three non-experienced item writers to locate and select potential IELTS academicreading texts. The submitted materials – texts and accompanying items – are provided in Appendix C.Perceived IELTS textcharacteristicsItem WriterAcademic 7 2Report 1Victoria Mathilda MaryDescriptive /conceptual 2 1 3Impersonal, hedging 2 1Pop-scientific/current 1 2 1Not too specialist 1 2Technical but not too 2 1Literary 1 2Not journalistic / news item 1 1Avoidance of bias, offence 4 2Of an assumed difficulty 3Length 3GrammarCohesion 1 1Range/ complexity 2Table 2. Non-Experienced Participants: Perceived characteristics of IELTSacademic reading module texts280 www.ielts.org