An examination of cultural bias in IELTS Task 1 non-process writing prompts: a UAE perspective

Abstract

This study analyzed 24 IELTS Task One (data explanation) prompts for task type, diagram type, subject matter, level of critical thought, and geographical references, in order to determine whether Emirati university students' anecdotal claims of cultural bias on the IELTS academic writing exam (as experienced by the researcher in the past decade of teaching IELTS in the United Arab Emirates) are valid. The analysis found that the majority of the task types (88%) were non-process in nature (i.e. required the description of data in the form of a chart or graph, rather than the description of a process); 40% of the non-process prompts consisted of more than one diagram. The analysis revealed that 33% of the non-process prompts included bar graphs and 29% included line graphs. Pie charts appeared in 25% of the prompts and tables in only 17%. An Emirati student English preparatory program survey indicated the pie chart as the easiest to understand -a finding that may highlight a difference between the most commonly used IELTS prompt and the students' prompt preference. A content analysis of topics found a high percentage (58%) of subject matter related to the social sciences, with 79% of the geographical references pertaining to Western contexts. An analysis of the amount of critical thought needed for graph interpretation revealed 52% of non-process prompts required some form of critical thought. The study therefore found that the cultural bias perceived by Emirati students has some validity, given the students' socio-cultural and educational background.

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

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Sitting at 6.5: Problematizing IELTS and Admissions to Canadian Universities

“…The average IELTS scores in 2017 from testing centres in those countries are mostly well below 7.0: 5.76 (China), 6.04 (India), 6.65 (Brazil), 6.71 (France), 6.12 (Brazil), 6.79 (Nigeria), 5.81 (Japan), and 5.26 (Saudi Arabia). A variety of factors might infl uence this variation: Those who have critically examined the IELTS test have found issues of cultural bias (Khan, 2006;Freimuth, 2016), economic factors (Hamid, 2016), and linguistic factors (Uysal, 2010), and other phenomena that might account for these national pa erns in test performance. The statistics above are general national statistics, and also IELTS is but one path into Canadian universities.…”

Investigating TESOL Teachers' Awareness of Critical Pedagogy at Higher Education Institutions in Oman: Implications for Critical Professional Development

“…Teachers considered the IELTS and TOEFL, which are products of the UK and the USA respectively, as fairly good indicators of students' proficiency. Several authors highlighted the economic and political ideologies underlying the IELTS and TOEFL (Khan, 2009;Templer, 2004), their cultural biases and unsuitability for different contexts (Al-Issa, 2016;Khan, 2009;Templer, 2004), their lack of validity (Al-Malki, 2014;Freimuth, 2016) and reliability (Alshammari, 2016). Hence, teachers at the ELCs need to be aware of these critical issues and their potential consequences and work towards utilizing alternative assessments since these two tests are high-stakes tests and much rests on the scores students obtain (Al-Issa, 2016).…”