Frequently asked questions

Is there a risk of gender bias in the IELTS Speaking Test?
O’Loughlin (2000) used the IELTS Oral Interview to investigate the potential impact of gender in oral proficiency assessment and found no evidence that the test was a strongly gender differentiated event. He concluded that IELTS interviewers and candidates ‘generally adopted a more collaborative, co-operative and supportive communicative style irrespective of their gender or the gender of their interlocutor’ (p 20). Furthermore, he found no empirical evidence of significant bias due to rater/candidate gender with regard to the rating process and the scores awarded. The introduction of the revised IELTS Speaking Test in 2001 was partly to minimise even further any potential for examiner language or behaviour during the test to be a source of bias.