The relationship between test-takers' listening proficiency and their performance on the IELTS Speaking test.

Nakatsuhara, F. Feb 2010 - Feb 2011

• Funding body: The IELTS Partners
• Summary: This study investigated the relationship between test-takers' listening proficiency and performance on Part 3 (discussion) of the IELTS Speaking test, as against that on Part 2 (individual long turn), and explored how communication problems that were associated with test-takers' listening proficiency occurred and how these problems were dealt with.
• Visit: www.ielts.org/researchers/research.aspx#R15

Since oral interview formats involve interactions between an examiner and a test-taker, they inevitably require a degree of listening proficiency. Despite increasing interest in the relationship between listening and speaking in listening-into-speaking tests (Stricker et al., 2005; Lee, 2006; Sawaki et al., 2009), no study has directly addressed this issue in relation to interview formats.

This study, therefore, investigates the impact of listening proficiency on interview test performance.

Data were collected from 36 students at a British University, who took a speaking test in both monologue and interview formats and a listening test. Students also had a brief post-test interview on their speaking test performance. All speaking test performance and interview data were video-recorded and transcribed.

Their performances in the two speaking formats were separately rated by two out of the four raters, and raters’ harshness levels were adjusted using the Rasch analysis. Results of the statistical analysis showed that for all four analytical rating categories (fluency, grammar, vocabulary and pronunciation), stronger correlation between listening and speaking scores was obtained with the interview than the monologue format.

The comparison in speaking scores between the two formats showed that test-takers got significantly lower scores in fluency in the interview format. The post-test interview data and the transcription data of test performances revealed further insights.

This study provides a better understanding of the role of listening in the construct of oral interview tests.