ARC Linkage Grant (Occupational English Test Writing Criteria)
The ‘Towards Improved Quality of Written Patient Records’ project was completed in 2017. Industry partner: Cambridge Boxhill Language Assessment.
In 2017, The Language Testing Research Centre completed work on an Australian Research Council (ARC) Linkage Grant, together with colleagues in the Medical Education Unit of the Melbourne Medical School and the Department of Nursing in the School of Health Sciences. The industry partner was Cambridge Boxhill Language Assessment.
The project, entitled ‘Towards improved quality of written patient records: language proficiency standards for non-native speaking health professionals: development and validation of language proficiency standardsfor writing for non-native English speaking health professionals', aimed to establish the professionally relevant criteria for the Occupational English Test (OET) writing tests.
The team extracted referral letters and discharge summaries from real patient records provided by two partner hospitals, one rural and one metropolitan. Health professionals then reviewed these documents and commented on the strengths and weaknesses in each document. Based on this data, indicators representing the values of the health professionals were extracted and a new rating scale for the writing sub-test of the OET developed. This scale was then trailed on language-trained OET raters. In a final phase, we also examined the passing standards on the writing sub-test. The final report has now been published.
Project details
Sponsor / Grant scheme
Industry partner organisation
Cambridge Boxhill Language Assessments
Project team members
Associate Professor Ute Knoch
Associate Professor Catherine Elder
Associate Professor Robyn Woodward-Kron
Associate Professor Eleanor Flynn
Professor Elizabeth Manias
Professor Tim McNamara
Barbara Zhang Ying
Ms Annemiek Huisman
PhD Scholars
Sharon Yahalom
Simon Davidson
Associated investigators
Dr Alison Dwyer, Austin Health