IELTS Research Reports

The cognitive processes of taking IELTS Academic Writing Task 14.3 Addressing the four research questions4.3.1 Research question 1To what extent are there differences in the candidates’ cognitive processes due to different AWT1prompts?In terms of cognitive processes of completing AWT1 tasks, we identified three key stages:comprehending non-graphic task instructions, comprehending graphic information, and re-producinggraphic and non-graphic information in continuous discourse (see Figure 3). Think-aloud protocols,interviews and AWT1 scripts form the three main data sources to investigate the extent to which thecognitive processes were due to the use of different graphic prompts.As shown in Table 5 (see 4.1.3) and Appendix 5, we used different types of graphic prompts,including bar graph (Task A:Instruction, Task B:EUfund), linear drawing of the layout of an area (TaskA:Layout), statistical table (Task A:Oil, Task B:Map), line graph (Task A:UKCO2, Task B:Viewing),diagram of the sequence of events (Task B:Broadcast), pie chart (Task B:EUfund), and world map(Task B:Map). Two of the tasks used two types of graphic prompts. In Task B:EUfund both bar graphand pie chart were used, and in Task B:Map, world map and statistical table.As reported in 4.2.1, there does not seem to be any significant difference in the way the participantsprocessed the non-graphic task instructions. All the participants (except Participant T) started withthe non-graphic task instructions. When doing Task A:Layout, Participant T started by analysingthe graphic information first, according to her think-aloud. Overall, it is only when comprehendinggraphic prompts and re-producing the main features of the graphic information in written discoursethat the participants demonstrated various differences in their cognitive processes.We noticed that the participants’ performance in the eight tasks varied significantly, in terms of thefinal scores they received (Chi-square=19.12, df=7, n=17, p