IELTS Research Reports

An empirical investigation of the process of writing Academic Readingtest items for the International English Language Testing SystemRewardingWorryingCreativeChallengingFinally finding theright text (victoria,mary)Finishingeverything(victoria, mary,mathilda)Not knowing ifthey are doing itright (mathilda,mary)Driven bypossibility it willbe used as a ‘real’test (victoria)Worrying aboutthe right level(mary)Not being privyto the processof editing,trialing(victoria)Whole processof creatingitems, driving theprocess oneself(mary)Unsure whetherdoing it right(mathilda, mary)Straightforwardinformational text(mathilda)Forcing indistractors (mary)No-one’s going toanswer the items(mary, victoria)No feedback,no knowledgeunderneath thetask they’re doing(mary, victoria,mathilda)Making upcredibledistractors(mathilda)The creative is constrained by the programmatic (mathilda, mary, victoria)Creating a viable4th distractor inmcq (victoria,mary)Forcing text intoparticular tasktypes (victoria)How much to edit(mary)Choosing tasktypes (mary)UNREWARDINGPLEASINGPROGRAMMATICSTRAIGHT-FORWARDFrustratingSupportedFinding the righttext (mary)Feedback offriend useful(mary)Topic checks withfriends (victoria)IELTS materialsvital (mary,mathilda)Matching textand task types(mathilda)Making itemsfor the matchingtasks (mary)Completing thematching task(mary)Perfecting answerkeys for saq task(victoria)Mathilda didn’tknow she couldseek helpToo little help onlevel of difficulty(mathilda)Needed moresamples andguidelines fortexts (mathilda)Finishingpreparation andediting of a good,cohesive text(victoria)Item writerguidelinesconfidential(victoria)SATISFYINGUNSUPPORTEDTable 4: summary of non-experienced participant focus group comments and ratings onsemantic differential scalesIELTS Research Reports Volume 11285