Examining the Relevance of TOEFL Essentials Test Tasks for Migration Purposes
Focussing on four professions: accountants, hospitality workers, nurses, IT professionals.
2022-2025
TOEFL is the most widely used English language test in the world, used principally for
the selection of students from non-English-speaking backgrounds for entry to
higher education in the USA and elsewhere.
The aim of this study was to examine the relevance of the task types of the
new TOEFL Essentials test to migration to Australia
Overseas-trained professionals play a major part in international workforce migration patterns and in Australia, just as in other English-speaking countries, are often recruited to fill workforce shortages. Australia’s two most popular paths to permanent migration are either through employer nominated visas or skilled independent visas. For both these pathways, applicants need to show evidence of their English language proficiency, although the required levels may differ.
Australian migration law currently accepts five major English language tests for visa purposes (TOEFL iBT, IELTS, OET, C1 and Pearson PTE). Most of these tests were originally developed to gather evidence of English language readiness for academic study; less validation work has focussed on using these tests for migration purposes. Recently, Educational Testing Service (ETS) introduced a new product, the TOEFL Essentials, which comprises tasks from both the general and academic domains.
The aim of this study was to examine the relevance of the task types of the new TOEFL Essentials test to migration to Australia. Focussing on four professions (accountants, hospitality workers, nurses, IT professionals) which feature highly on the skilled migration list, an interview-based study was conducted to elicit the experiences and impressions of 80 recent migrants to Australia as well as 12 educators.
Publications
Papers published in open access format:
Fan, J., Knoch, U., Davey, M., Chandran, R., Huisman, A., Chen, I., O’Hagan, S., & Treadway, M. (2026). Modelling workplace communicative competence: evidence from migrant workers in food services. Applied Linguistics Review.
Knoch, U., Fan, J., Davey, M., O’Hagan, S., Chen, I., Huisman, A., Treadway, M., & Chandran, R. (2026). Examining the relevance of three TOEFL Essentials writing tasks to the accounting profession: The role of domain experts. Assessing Writing, 69, 101072.