William S. Pearson

Department: Graduate School of Education
Discipline: Education

Project Summary

IELTS (International English Language Testing System) is firmly entrenched as a global English gatekeeping test, undertaken by around three million people per year to obtain evidence of sufficient language ability for tertiary study in or migration to an English-speaking country. The contingency of individuals’ major life-decisions on performance in the test has led to the expansion of a test preparation industry founded upon the theoretical principle of test-wiseness, manifest in the wealth of online content, printed materials, and taught courses. An integral element of preparation for the IELTS is simulated written practice compositions. Such activities provide opportunities for feedback, which may serve to highlight areas where developing writers are performing well, and those where they are not, along with informing candidates how they might need to adapt their writing to the requirements of test tasks. Nevertheless, limited prior research has been undertaken investigating the role of feedback in enhancing candidates’ test-wiseness in IELTS, and notably the IELTS Writing test. Particularly absent from the literature are the feedback perceptions and reactions of the key stakeholders in this context; the candidates-in-training.  These may be crucial factors for test-taker success in IELTS preparation. This project encompasses a mixed methods multiple case study design to investigate how eight candidates preparing for IELTS using Facebook community groups perceive and respond to feedback on their IELTS Writing Task 1 and 2 practice compositions. The study will utilise semi-structured interviews and thematic textual analysis to generate idiographic knowledge concerning their response to feedback over three compositions. Further, the study will shed light on test-takers’ feedback attitudes and expectations, as well as investigating the personal and contextual factors that influence their response.

Supervisory Team

Dr Susan Riley

Dr Esmaeel Abdollahzadeh

Wider Research Interests

I am a PhD candidate in education with the Graduate School of Education at the University of Exeter. I have two main research interests that lay within the field of applied linguistics. My primary research interest centres on the International English Language Testing System (IELTS) test. In particular, I am concerned with how students prepare for this high-stakes, life-changing test along with the nature of taught, classroom-based IELTS preparation, especially with regard to teacher feedback. I am also interested in the impact of the IELTS test on candidates, particularly with regard to the test’s consequential validity and ethical ramifications. My second research interest is teacher corrective feedback in second language writing classroom contexts. In this well-researched and often intensely-debated field, I have an interest in how written feedback supports the development of learners’ L2 writing, how learners perceive and interpret teacher feedback, and finally methodological issues that determine how research data is generated in this area.

Authored Publications/Reports

William S. Pearson (1st August 2018) Review of Todd Ruecker & Deborah Crusan (2018), The Politics of English Second Language Writing Assessment in Global Contexts, TESL-EJ, 22(2)

William S. Pearson (27th February 2018) Written Corrective Feedback in IELTS Writing Task 2: Teachers’ Priorities, Practices, and Beliefs, TESL-EJ, 21(4)

William S. Pearson (14th December 2018) Utilising Facebook Community Groups for IELTS Preparation: A Thematic Analysis, The Asian EFL Journal, 20(12.2), 5-59

William S. Pearson (4th February 2020) The Effectiveness of Pre‐sessional EAP Programmes in UK Higher Education: A Review of the Evidence, Review of Education, https://doi.org/10.1002/rev3.3191

William S. Pearson (4th February 2020) Context and Implications Document for: The Effectiveness of Pre‐sessional EAP Programmes in UK Higher Education: A Review of the Evidence, Review of Education, https://doi.org/10.1002/rev3.3192