IELTS Research Reports

Guoxing Yu, Pauline Rea-Dickins and Richard Kiely(Figure 3) will be a useful framework for designing AWT1 tasks, considering the three interrelatedstages of AWT1 cognitive processes – comprehending the non-graphically presented task instructions,comprehending graphic information, and re-producing graph comprehension in written discourse inEnglish. The findings of this research project suggest that when designing AWT1 tasks, we need toconsider what accompanying instructions should be provided with the graphs and whether the summarylikeintroductory sentence should serve as the entry point for levelling the playing field for test takerswith varying background knowledge, graphic skills and reading abilities. As AWT1 tasks are essentiallyreading/writing integrated tasks, it is essential to consider not only the graphic skills of the test takersbut also their reading abilities. Although the tasks may require just reading one summary-like sentencein the instructions, the sentence can actually serve as a guide for test takers to grasp the key informationof the graphs, and it may become more and more critical when test takers move further down the line tore-produce the main information embedded in the graphic prompts.It is also important to consider and compare the potential differential effects of different graphic promptson the cognitive processes of test taking as well as on test performance, because different graphs havedifferent conventions in presentation and interpretation. Beside the types of graphs, we also need toconsider the information density, or data points of the graphs, as information density clearly has impacton how and what test takers can extract from the graphs. Other display characteristics of graphs alsoneed to be taken into account when test designers consider the information density of the graphs, e.g.whether to include caption or title. As display characteristics of graphs can affect task performance, wewould be very cautious about O’Loughlin and Wigglesworth’s (2003) recommendation: “a variety ofpresentation types can be encouraged and manipulated” (p 114). Although the final scores that two piecesof writings may receive may be similar, regardless of which graph type they are based on, it is very clear,as shown in our study, that the use of different graphic prompts can activate different forms of “cognitivenaturalness” in comprehending and re-presenting graphic information, and can invite candidates toproduce different writings, particularly in terms of the use of different vocabulary choices. The qualityof a graph is not just innate in its display features (Bertin 1983; Saint-Martin 1990; Tufte 1983); it isin fact determined in interaction between these features and the characteristics of graph readers (e.g.,their familiarity with and experience in using graphs). These interactions are the starting points forinvestigating the cognitive processes of AWT1 tasks.We noticed that AWT1 tasks seemed to be highly trainable and the writings were highly predictable:the participants were easily influenced in their ways of re-producing graph comprehension by theshort training. The high coachability of the tasks and the rigid use of the formulaic phrases and wordsin AWT1 writings without necessarily understanding them bring up the ongoing question of how farAWT1 fosters rote-learning of fixed phrases. They also raise an equity issue. If test takers have notattended intensive training courses and are not aware of the task requirement of “describing” only,they could be disadvantaged if they tried to integrate the information depicted in the graphs with theirprior content and graphic knowledge. Whether and to what extent reasonable “interpretation” shouldbe allowed in AWT1 writings have implications for comparability in marking. The participants’ strongview that interpretation of data is an integral and natural part of academic writing also oblige us toconsider the extent to which the AWT1 tasks mirror academic writing in target language use domains,for example, when describing and interpreting lab results.The findings of this research study are useful not only to language test providers and language testingresearchers, but also to intending IELTS candidates and English language professionals and teachers todevelop a greater understanding of the AWT1 tasks, as well as other language tests (listening, speakingand writing assessments) using graphs as prompts. It contributes to the development of theories and408 www.ielts.org