IELTS History : Test Format and Revision

In the previous explanation, has described about beginnings formed ELTS exam / IELTS. And now, author will describe about Test development and Revision from year to year. Enjoy ;)

The ELTS test offered a choice of six modules covering five broad areas of study of UK tertiary education, plus one non-specific area. The six modules were:

• Life Sciences
• Social Studies
• Physical Sciences
• Technology
• Medicine
• General Academic

There was also a Non-Academic test for vocational candidates.

Each candidate was required to take three sections in their subject area or module and two common tests in the General section:

M1 Study Skills	G1 General Reading
M2 Writing	G2 General Listening
M3 Individual Interview

A further feature of the test was that the three subject area modules were thematically linked: candidates were required to write on a topic connected to one of the texts in the Study Skills paper. Similarly, in the Interview the candidate would be asked to discuss a topic already covered in M1.

The ELTS Revision Project

ELTS continued in the form outlined above until 1989. During the 1980s the test numbers were quite low (4000 in 1981 rising to 10,000 by 1985), and it was clear that there were practical difficulties with the administration of the test, relating to the number of test items and the time taken to complete the test; there were also powerful reasons for change on the grounds of test redundancy.

In 1987 British Council and UCLES EFL (now known as Cambridge ESOL) commissioned Edinburgh University to conduct a validation study (see Criper and Davies, 1988; Hughes, Porter and Weir, 1988). Following this report the ELTS Revision Project, under the academic direction of Professor Charles Alderson of Lancaster University, was set up to oversee the design and construction of the revised test (Alderson and Clapham, 1993).

There was consensus to broaden the international participation in the revision project and in response to this the International Development Program of Australian Universities and Colleges (IDP), now known as IDP Education Australia, joined British Council and UCLES to form an international partnership, reflected in the new name for the test: The International English Language Testing System (IELTS). The immediate outcome of this partnership was the secondment of an Australian academic, Professor David Ingram of Griffith University, to the revision project.

The recommendations of the revision team to simplify and shorten ELTS were accepted and a compromise was sought "between practicality and maximum predictive power". The number of subject-specific modules was reduced from six to three and the Non-Academic test was replaced by the General Module. IELTS first became operational in 1989 (Clapham and Alderson, 1997).

Format of the 1989 IELTS

From 1989 IELTS candidates took two non-specialised modules, Listening and Speaking, and two specialised modules, Reading and Writing. The non-specialised modules tested general English while the specialised modules were intended to test skills in particular areas suited to a candidate's chosen course of study. Specialised reading and writing modules (incorporating a direct link between the reading and writing activities) were available in three discipline fields which linked together related fields that had previously been separate modules in the ELTS battery, as shown below:

• Module A – Physical Science and Technology
• Module B – Life and Medical Sciences
• Module C – Business Studies and Social Sciences

Reading	Module A	Module B	Module C	General
Writing	Module A	Module B	Module C	General
Listening	Non-specialised Module
Speaking	Non-specialised Module

Over the next five years the number of people taking the test rose by around 15% each year so that by 1995 there were over 43,000 candidates in 210 test centres around the world.

1995 revision of IELTS

In keeping with the commitment of the IELTS partners to respond to developments in applied linguistics, measurement theory and teaching practice, further modifications to the test were implemented in April 1995. In addition to a number of modifications to improve security and administration, there were three areas of significant change:

• The field-specific Reading and Writing Modules A, B and C were replaced with ONE Academic Reading Module and ONE Academic Writing Module. Details of the research behind this change to the test design can be found in Clapham (1996) who concluded that the different subject modules did not appear justified in terms of accessibility to specialists. In addition, the thematic link between the reading and writing activities was also removed to avoid confusing the assessment of reading ability with that of writing ability.
• General Training Reading and Writing Modules were brought into line with the Academic Reading and Writing Modules in terms of timing allocation, length of written responses and reporting of scores. The difference between the Academic and General Training Modules is in terms of the content, context and purpose for testing rather than the scales of ability.
• Measures were introduced to gather data on test performance and candidate background so that issues of fairness relating to test use and users could be more effectively monitored.

A brief summary of the 1995 revision of IELTS can be found in Charge and Taylor (1997).

Edited from :

Alderson, J C and Clapham, C (eds) (1993) Examining the ELTS Test: An Account of the First Stage of the ELTS Revision Project – Research Report 2. The British Council/University of Cambridge Local Examinations Syndicate.

Criper, C and Davies, A (1988) ELTS Validation Project Report: Research Report 1(i). The British Council/University of Cambridge Local Examinations Syndicate.

Charge, N and Taylor, L (1997) 'Recent developments in IELTS', English Language Teaching Journal, 51/4. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Clapham, C (1996) 'The development of IELTS: a study of the effect of background knowledge on reading comprehension', Studies in Language Testing, volume 4. Cambridge: LES/Cambridge University Press.

Clapham, C and Alderson, J C (1997) Constructing and Trialling the IELTS Test - Research Report 3.

Davies, A (2008) Assessing Academic English: Testing English Proficiency, 1950–1989 — the IELTS solution. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Hughes, A, Porter, D and Weir, C (1988) ELTS Validation Project Report: Proceedings of a conference held to consider the ELTS Validation Project Report - Research Report 1(iii). The British Council/University of Cambridge Local Examinations Syndicate.