Testing Language, but What?: Examining the Carrier Content of IELTS Preparation Materials from a Critical Perspective

“The Road Not Taken” in Language Testing: Sociocultural Implications of Test and Teaching Contents

“…The discussions made through this paper as well as the preceding dissertation study (Noori, 2021) and its key article (Noori & Mirhosseini, 2021) revealed that the ostensible experimental language tests and their teaching practices, the most typical is the IELTS have been implicitly but ideologically utilized for political purposes through presupposition and naturalization of certain ideologies or hegemonic discursive forces formed by repetitions of a theme or (non)discursive values to the extent of the only and purely logical and commonsensical life concerns. In this way, through restriction of certain reality, and specific ways of selecting, presenting, and reproducing knowledge and beliefs through their contents (Bori, 2018), preparatory materials, in this case those of the high stakes, as commodified culture industry products are directed to legitimize themselves in people's thoughts, who happily and uncritically welcome their position within their system (Dant 2003, cited in Bori, 2018.…”

“…These beyond-language assessment functions of the language test contents should be reappraised as what may bear along the very social consequences of language tests. Reflection of the views of various related stakeholders on the high-stake test contents as undertaken in my dissertation study (Noori, 2021) may better demonstrate such a "road not taken" (Frost, 1916, p. 9)/ wrongly taken for years in the field of language assessment and will help furthering its literacy. As for the pedagogical implication, not to be ignored is the role of educators, who transfer such meanings as buried in the test and teaching materials to test takers through class activities and pedagogical materials.…”

“…Seating the included/excluded contents of the IELTS tests and their preparation materials beside those of teaching to the IELTS test practices as reflected here, it is demonstrated a homogeneous conceptual flow along with certain sociocultural meanings and values as souvenired from the west is getting lullabied through the contents of the high stakes and their profitable test preparation materials and practices. These bring into mind the previously made claim about the discredit of the international face of the IELTS and its generalizability to the client communities (Noori & Mirhosseini, 2021). The cultural homogenization introduced by bringing forth limited materialistic concepts of Entertainment, Money, and Education in very limited core settings of the United States followed by Britain, or other European countries as evidenced in the contents of the Cambridge IELTS books and further evidenced in IELTS preparation courses may de-emphasize test audiences' real-life indigenous priorities, concerns, cultures, and conventions, and give them a lens through which desired/desirable world can be perceived.…”

“…However, these marginalized but worthwhile studies still seem to linger their conceptual maneuver on technical testing-oriented views of the IELTS test contents. This attention was redirected in a more comprehensive investigation into sociocultural meanings of the IELTS content undertaken by my doctoral dissertation study (Noori, 2021) and its article (Noori & Mirhosseini, 2021), which examined all four IELTS test modules. The results were indicative of four major categories of Entertainment, Money, Nature, and Education, plus a Miscellaneous set of various concepts.…”

Predictability of IELTS in a high-stakes context: a mixed methods study of Chinese students’ perspectives on test preparation

“…Poza and Shannon (2020) and Cheng (2005) state that the results of tests (usually public examinations or largescale standardised tests) are used as the basis of making important decisions for testtakers' future academic and employment opportunities, which can affect the test-takers profoundly. Noori and Mirhosseini (2021) and Stenlund et al (2017) share this view, stating that the outcomes of high-stakes tests can lead to major consequences for participants; high-stakes test such as IELTS can influence millions of test-takers (Clark et al, 2021). There are many aspects to the influence of such high-stakes tests: the greater the test's consequences, the likelier it is to exert an effect on teaching and learning because a high-stakes test serves as an incentive to promote students' performance (Estaji & Ghiasvand, 2021); Stenlund et al (2017) argue that those taking such a test have a high motivation level because of the anticipated reward.…”