37.1474, Diss: English; Applied Linguistics, Clinical Linguistics, Cognitive Science, Computational Linguistics, Sociolinguistics: Reihaneh Baranitoroghi: "Item Discrimination of IELTS Reading Comprehension Section: Evidence from Event Related Potentials"

[The LINGUIST List]

LINGUIST List: Vol-37-1474. Fri Apr 17 2026. ISSN: 1069 - 4875.

Subject: 37.1474, Diss: English; Applied Linguistics, Clinical Linguistics, Cognitive Science, Computational Linguistics, Sociolinguistics: Reihaneh Baranitoroghi: "Item Discrimination of IELTS Reading Comprehension Section: Evidence from Event Related Potentials"

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Date: 15-Apr-2026
From: Reihaneh Baranitoroghi [baran2020reyhani3232 at gmail.com]
Subject: Item Discrimination of IELTS Reading Comprehension Section: Evidence from Event Related Potentials


Institution: Azad University of Mashhad
Degree Date: 2020
Level: Masters

Dissertation Title: Item Discrimination of IELTS Reading Comprehension
Section: Evidence from Event Related Potentials

Linguistic Field(s): Applied Linguistics
                     Clinical Linguistics
                     Cognitive Science
                     Computational Linguistics
                     Sociolinguistics

Subject Language(s): English (eng)

Dissertation Director(s): Zahra Zohoorian, Majid Ghoshuni

Dissertation Abstract:

The development of international proficiency tests such as IELTS,
which entail important decision making about people’s academic lives,
requires complex processes to ensure item discrimination. Previous
research has indicated that IELTS has been ineffective in omitting
distractor components, which may offer limitations in differentiating
among the candidates. Among all the sections, particular attention has
been paid to the reading comprehension component and it is considered
as a criterion for determining whether a person is academically
literate or not. While there seems to be a deep linkage between brain
and reading comprehension, Event Related Potentials (ERP), as one of
the methods used for measuring brain activity, allows researchers to
observe reading- related brain processes and can document neural
patterns at the millisecond level. This study aimed at examining item
discrimination of the reading comprehension section of the IELTS exam
through ERP. With a sample of 10 participants holding the band scores
from 6 to 8, the reading comprehension items of a retired version of
IELTS were given to the test takers as the task or the stimulus. It
was found out that there is a mismatch between the proposed category
of difficulty given for the reading comprehension item types and ERP
evidence.



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