The effects of coaching and repeated test-taking on Chinese candidates’ IELTS scores, their English proficiency, and subsequent academic achievement

ABSTRACT

Although most international students arrive with required language qualifications, many struggle with the linguistic demands of their programmes. This study explored whether the test-preparation industry undermines the qualifications with which students arrive. English proficiency of 153 Chinese student in the UK was tested on the Duolingo English Test and a C-test. Students who attended IELTS-coaching programmes scored lower on both measures compared to students who met entry requirements without such help. Furthermore, the number of attempts to achieve a particular IELTS score was negatively correlated with the other English proficiency scores on arrival. The results confirm that coaching, and to some extent repeated test-taking, boost IELTS scores without generalising to other proficiency measures. The effects were, however, small so that despite the observed inflation, IELTS scores were a reliable predictor of academic success: the rise of one IELTS band resulted in the average grade increase of 9 and 4 points (out of 100) in linguistically more and less demanding disciplines, respectively. The results underscore the important role that language plays in study success, and show that many international students get accepted with levels of English that limit their academic achievement. The test-preparation industry contributes in part to this.

KEYWORDS:

• IELTS
• test-preparation
• coaching
• repeated test-taking
• academic success

Acknowledgements

We would like to thank Cylcia Bolibaugh for helpful discussions during various stages of this study and manuscript preparation. We are also grateful to two anonymous reviewers for their constructive comments and suggestions. This work was supported in part by a grant from Duolingo, Inc. to Danijela Trenkic.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported in part by a grant from Duolingo, Inc. to Danijela Trenkic.

Notes on contributors

Ruolin Hu

Ruolin Hu was a PhD student at the University of York when this study was conducted. Her research interests focus on testing and assessment, validity and washback. She is now Lecturer in Educational Linguistics at the Department of Education, University of Birmingham.

Danijela Trenkic

Danijela Trenkic is Associate Professor of Second Language Education at the University of York and outgoing president of the European Second Language Association. Her research focuses on understanding how people comprehend, use and learn new languages and straddles two main areas: language, literacy and academic attainment of multilingual populations, with particular reference to international students in higher education; and language, memory and cognition, with particular reference to mechanisms that underpin second language learning and use.