A comparative study of TEEP and IELTS for transnational education (TNE) students and their relationship to subject study

This paper reports on a comparative study of two English language tests in a transnational education (TNE) context: TEEP (Test of English for Educational Purposes) developed at the University of Reading (U.K.) and IELTS (International English Language Testing System). Our study adopted a longitudinal mixed-methods design. Students’ TEEP and IELTS results were collected, and then two phases of focus groups with students were conducted to explore their perceptions of test-taking and academic study. Quantitative data were subject to statistical analysis and qualitative data to thematic analysis. Quantitative results showed that the students performed significantly better on Speaking and Writing in TEEP while they performed significantly better overall and on Listening and Reading in IELTS. Factor Analysis suggested both TEEP and IELTS tapped into one single underlying construct which we termed English-language proficiency. Qualitative results from focus groups illuminated the quantitative findings and the perceived relevance in their subject study. This article was published open access under a CC BY licence: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ .