Unveiling the factors for the predictive validity of IELTS for postgraduate studies: assessment, teaching and learning in the TLU domain
- Dates: 2021–23
- Funding body: British Council and IELTS partners
- Value: £45,000
- Primary investigator: Huahui Zhao (Education)
- Co-investigators: Yen Dang (Education)
- Language at Leeds satellites: Pedagogical linguistics
- Language at Leeds themes: Language learning and teaching
The project examines the language demand by IELTS and postgraduate assessment and how language and assessment support could improve PGT students’ academic achievement and learning experience. It will employ three research methods: corpus-based analyses of IELTS scripts, postgraduate assignment scripts and teacher feedback on assignment scripts, focus groups with postgraduate students, subject tutors and language tutors and document analyses of assessment criteria, assignment briefs and related. We hope that the project could provide useful implications for appropriate use and interpretation of IELTS scores, effective provision of language and assessment support for postgraduate students and inform the future design of IELTS tasks.