The Relationship between Authenticity and Generalizability of IELTS Academic Tests Administered in Iran

This study aimed at investigating the relationship between authenticity and generalizability of International English Language Tests System (IELTS) academic tests administered in Iran. Authenticity and generalizability are two vital important qualities of IELTS tests. Generalizability is defined as “the degree to which the findings and conclusions can be generalized from the study sample to the entire population” (Hungler Polit, 1991, p. 645). Backman and Palmer (1996) define authenticity as “the degree of correspondence of a given language test tasks to the feature of a target language use task” (p. 23). The required data to answer the posed question in this study were collected through self-assessment and generalizability questionnaires developed by the researchers. One hundred IELTS academic test takers who took test in 2014 and one hundred English teachers who have been teaching English including IELTS course completed the questionnaires. To analyze the collected data, Pearson product correlation coefficient was computed. The results of data analysis revealed that there is a significant correlation between the test takers’ scores on the authenticity and generalizability scores of IELTS academic tests.