Volume 7, 2007, Paper 2
Paper 2: Student identity, learning and progression: The
affective and academic impact of IELTS on ‘successful’
candidates
Authors
Pauline Rea-Dickins
University of Bristol
Richard Kiely
University of Bristol
Guoxing Yu
University of Bristol
This study examines the possible affective and academic impacts
of the IELTS performance of a group of postgraduate students.
ABSTRACT
The institutional use of IELTS for university admissions
reflects an implicit claim for a student’s language development and
growth. The extent to which such potential is realised, or not, can
therefore be considered a consequential validity issue of the IELTS
examination. To date, there has been relatively little focus in
IELTS impact studies on the different IELTS profiles of ‘successful
IELTS students’. This research adopted a case study approach and
tracked 26 postgraduate students over a five to 11 month period in
one English university. Framed as a post-IELTS impact study, it has
examined the possible affective and academic impacts of the
students’ IELTS performances (in all four language skill areas)
from the point at which they start their academic programs of
subject learning. Identity is conceptualised from a socio-cultural
perspective: drawing on the work of Lave and Wenger (1991) and
Wenger (1998), the development of identity involves negotiation of
access to communities of practice. Identity and learning are
performed, and through narrative accounts of performance in
learning journals, interviews and student workshops, we document
the process of learning by international students. This
process is further informed by two other data sets: i) the
accounts of academic tutors and administrators, and ii) assessments
of learning power, as represented by the Effective Lifelong
Learning Inventory (Broadfoot 2005; Deakin Crick et al, 2004).
Student performance on IELTS has been analysed in relation to
the four language skill areas. Two approaches have been taken
to the analysis of the data: (a) ethnographic accounts of subject
learning through the medium of English, and (b) categorical
analysis using winMAX (Kuckartz 1998). The findings from this
research are several and point to: (i) the affective dimensions of
the struggle of postgraduate students and the ways in which these
derive from the test itself; (ii) the linking of this struggle with
how they work through the four language skills; (iii) an
overwhelming lack of awareness of admissions staff about IELTS; and
(iv) the assumptions about the test by tutors and how these might
impact on student performance.
