English language learning
Shadab Moslehi; Seyyed Ayatollah Razmjoo
Abstract
The main objective of this qualitative-quantitative content analysis study was to compare IELTS Academic and TOEFL iBT four modules in terms of the cognition and knowledge dimensions of Revised Bloom’s taxonomy. To this end, two authentic tests including all major modules of speaking, listening, ...
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The main objective of this qualitative-quantitative content analysis study was to compare IELTS Academic and TOEFL iBT four modules in terms of the cognition and knowledge dimensions of Revised Bloom’s taxonomy. To this end, two authentic tests including all major modules of speaking, listening, reading, and writing in each domain, namely iBT TOEFL and IELTS Academic exams were analyzed qualitatively and quantitatively. These tests were randomly selected from the collection of authentic tests available in trustworthy resources. The contents of these tests were codified using a coding scheme developed by Razmjoo and Kazempourfard (2012). In this coding scheme, English alphabets and numbers were assigned to levels of cognition and knowledge, respectively. The results indicated that in general TOEFL iBT codes are more inclined toward the higher orders of thinking and knowledge and the codes are not noticeably divergent; while, the majority of the codes in the IELTS Academic test are skewed toward the lower codes of the BRT. This shows the higher stance of the TOEFL iBT test concerning the higher orders of thinking and knowledge in the BRT. A significant difference was also found between the TOEFL iBT and IELTS Academic tests concerning the highest and the lowest levels of BRT.
Mohammad Khatib; Mostafa Mirzaii
Volume 8, Issue 17 , July 2016, , Pages 49-73
Abstract
English language practitioners have long relied on intuition-based scales for rating EFL/ESL writing. As these scales lack an empirical basis, the scores they generate tend to be unreliable, which results in invalid interpretations. Given the significance of the genre of description and the fact that ...
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English language practitioners have long relied on intuition-based scales for rating EFL/ESL writing. As these scales lack an empirical basis, the scores they generate tend to be unreliable, which results in invalid interpretations. Given the significance of the genre of description and the fact that the relevant literature does not introduce any data-based analytic scales for rating EFL descriptive writing, the researcher conducted a three-strand mixed study aimed at the empirical development of an analytic rating scale for scoring descriptions written by EFL learners. Composed of one quantitative and two qualitative strands, this mixed study factor-analyzed 172 ELT experts' analyses of the genre of description, and it content-analyzed 20 authentic and 30 inauthentic descriptive texts. Resulting from two meta-inferences made in the course of this study, the Analytic Rating Scale for EFL Descriptive Writing was constructed. Hopefully, employing this scale will lead to more reliable scores and more valid interpretations and decisions.
