IELTS Research Reports

ContentsIntroducing IELTS ................................................................................................................................................1Introduction, Dr Lynda Taylor ...........................................................................................................................71 An impact study into the use of IELTS by professional associationsand registration entities: The United Kingdom, Ireland and CanadaExamines the history and rationale for selection of IELTS as a language benchmarking systemfor professional associations, and explores the main competitors to IELTS in global testing forprofessionals, in Canada, the UK and Ireland.Glenys Merrifield, GBM Associates ......................................................................................... 212 Learning to play the ‘classroom tennis’ well: IELTS and international students inteacher educationAddresses the question of an appropriate IELTS score for graduate entry teacher educationcourses by investigating the extent to which current IELTS scores into graduate entry teachereducation courses are considered adequate: by the lecturers of such students, by prospectiveteacher registration authorities and by the students themselves.Wayne Sawyer and Michael Singh, University of Western Sydney............................................ 733 A multiple case study of the relationship between the indicators of students’ Englishlanguage competence on entry and students’ academic progress at an internationalpostgraduate universityInvestigates selection practices and decision making rationales of admissions personnel in aninternational, postgraduate UK setting and the consequences for borderline non-native Englishspeaking students’ academic progress.Gaynor Lloyd-Jones, Charles Neame and Simon Medaney, Cranfield University ................... 1294 Construct validity in the IELTS Academic Reading test: a comparison of readingrequirements in IELTS test items and in university studyInvestigates suitability of items on the IELTS Academic Reading test in relation to thereading and general literacy requirements of university study, through a survey of readingtasks in both domains, and interviews with academic staff from a range of disciplines.Tim Moore, Swinburne University, Janne Morton, Melbourne University and Steve Price,Swinburne University ............................................................................................................ 1855 An investigation of the process of writing IELTS Academic Reading test itemsCompares how trained and untrained item writers select and edit reading texts to make themsuitable for a task-based test of reading and how they generate the accompanying items.Both individual and collective test editing processes are investigated.Anthony Green and Roger Hawkey, University of Bedfordshire ............................................. 2696 The cognitive processes of taking IELTS Academic Writing Task 1Investigates cognitive processes of candidates taking IELTS Academic Writing Task Onewith different graphic prompts at two time points: before AWT1 task training, and after.Guoxing Yu, Pauline Rea-Dickins and Richard Kiely, University of Bristol ............................ 373IELTS Research Reports Volume 115