Authenticity in the IELTS Academic Module Writing Test: a comparative study of Task 2 items and university assignments

Abstract

The study reported here investigated the authenticity of the Task 2 component of the IELTS writing test (academic module). Specifically, the study's aim was to find out the extent to which this component of the test corresponds to the writing requirements of university study. This was researched in two ways: through a survey of writing tasks set in the two domains, and through interviews with academic staff. In the task survey, a total of 155 assignment tasks from a range of undergraduate and postgraduate courses were collected and then compared with a corpus of 20 IELTS Task 2 items. The tasks were compared according to four dimensions of difference: genre; information source; rhetorical function; object of enquiry. This part of the study found that the IELTS tasks bear some resemblance to the predominant genre of university study - the essay; however, a number of important differences were observed between the two corpora. The most important of these were: i) the use of prior knowledge as the basis for writing in the IELTS tasks, compared with the prescription of a variety of research processes in the university assignments; ii) a restricted range of rhetorical functions in the IELTS items (with a focus on hortation), compared with a diversity of functions in the university tasks; iii) an emphasis on 'real world' entities (situations, actions, practices) in the objects of enquiry of IELTS items compared with a greater focus on abstract entities (theories,ideas, methods) in the university tasks. From these findings, it was speculated that the type of writing prescribed in IELTS Task 2 items may have more in common with certain public non-academic genres - the newspaper editorial and letter to the editor - than those characteristic of the academic domain. The staff survey was designed to obtain an alternative perspective on the university assignment tasks and their relationship tot he IELTS Task 2 items. As a supplement to the main focus of the study, the staff survey was small in scale - consisting of interviews with twelve lecturers of first year undergraduate subjects. Overall, lecturers were positive about the nature of the IELTS Task 2 format and also the type of language instruction they imagined students would receive in preparing for it. Most however, identified substantial differences between the writing needed for the test and that required in their respective subjects. In general terms, these differences were similar to those found in the task analysis, including IELTS's emphasis on opinionative styles of writing as opposed to the careful use and evaluation of sources in many university tasks. In the final section of the report, a number of modifcations to the format of Task 2 items are recommended. It is argued that if implemented, these changes would bring this component of the test more into line with the requirements of university writing and in so doing improve the test's washback effect on pre-tertiary English programs.

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