Dr Tony Clark

Dr Tony Clark

Head of IELTS Research

Tony Clark is the Head of IELTS Research at Cambridge English, managing research on the IELTS test. Since joining Cambridge English in 2018, he has been responsible for the IELTS Joint-funded Research Programme and the Caroline Clapham Master’s Award, acted as Permanent Secretary/Chair of the IELTS Joint Research Committee, and led on a number of high profile cross-partner research projects, in addition to several standard-setting workshops. His other principal research interests include Chinese and Japanese educational contexts, academic writing for overseas learning, test preparation, pedagogy, diagnostic assessment and lexical studies.

Tony’s PhD (University of Bristol) received a British Council Research Assessment Award in 2014, and in 2015/2016 he was a recipient of the Newton Fund Scholarship. He has also contributed to research projects on language and admissions testing, language acquisition and test development, collaborating with Bristol University, Coventry University, Swansea University and Assessment Europe.

Prior to entering full-time research, he was a test preparation instructor for the British Council (Japan and Morocco), worked as a teacher in Italy, Hungary, and the UK and as a Cambridge Examiner. His first degree was in Philosophy and English Literature (University of Edinburgh).

Key publications and conference presentations

Clark, T. & Yu, G. (2022) Exploring the Pedagogical Remit of Test Preparation: The case of writing acquisition on an IELTS course. Applied Linguistics Review. Available online.

Khabbazbashi, N., Chan, S., & Clark, T. (2022). Towards the New Construct of Academic English in the Digital Age. English Language Teaching Journal (ELTJ). Available online.

Clark, T., & Yu, G. (2022). Test Preparation Pedagogy for International Study: Relating Teacher Cognition, Instructional Models and Early Academic Writing Skills. Language Teaching Research. Available online.

Clark, T., & Endres, H. (2021). Online Diagnostic Grammar Testing for High School Students - an International Trial. Assessment in Education: Principles, Policy & Practice, 28 (5-6), 602–632. Available online.

Clark, T., Spiby R., & Tasviri, R. (2021). Crisis, Collaboration, Recovery: IELTS and COVID-19. Language Assessment Quarterly, 18(1), 17–25. Available online.

Clark, T., & Yu, G. (2020). Beyond the IELTS test: Chinese and Japanese postgraduate UK experiences. International Journal of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism, 24(10), 1512-1530. Available online.

Spiby, R., & Clark, T. (2023). Responding to a transformed assessment landscape: the example of IELTS. In H. I. Işik, E. Kantarcioğlu, A. Üner, & C. Thomas (eds.), Life After the Pandemic: ReVision and Reform in EAP Contexts (pp. 83–93). Newcastle: Cambridge Scholars Publishing.

Clark, T., Holland, M., & Spiby, R. (2022). Seeking Empirical Evidence to Support Online Test Validation: Building on the Indicator Assessment Model. In K. Sadeghi (ed.), Language Assessment at the Time of the COVID-19 Pandemic (pp. 16–33). Abingdon: Routledge.

Yu, G., & Clark, T. (2020). Testing Practices and Construct Operationalisation: Reflections on Cyril Weir’s View of Integrated Assessment Tasks. In L. Taylor & N. Saville (eds.), Lessons and Legacy: A Tribute to Professor Cyril J Weir (1950-2018) (pp. 159–174). Studies in Language Testing volume 50. Cambridge: UCLES/Cambridge University Press.

Curry, N., & Clark, T. (2020). Spelling Errors in the Preliminary English B1 Exam: Corpus-informed Evaluation of Examination Criteria for MENA Contexts. In The Assessment of L2 Written English across the MENA Region: A Synthesis of Practice (pp. 359–392). Palgrave Macmillan/Cham. Available online.

Clark, T. (2023, January 18). Visually Impaired Learners and High-Stakes Testing Accommodations: Navigating and Redressing Power Asymmetry [Invited talk]. EALTA Equal Opportunities and Diversity Online SiG.

Spiby, R. & Clark, T. (2022, June 3–5). Adapting IELTS in a transformed assessment landscape: IELTS Indicator [Conference presentation]. 18th EALTA Conference, Budapest.

Westbrook, C., Clark, T., Appl, E., Cruise, J., & Jiang, R. (2022, March 7–11). Investigating source text use in an integrated EAP reading and listening-into-writing task [Conference presentation]. Language Testing Research Colloquium 2022, Tokyo.

Lim, G., Clark, T., & Seguis, B. (2021, June 14–17). Standard Setting in the Context of Language Assessment [Workshop]. Language Testing Research Colloquium 2021, Tunisia.

Clark, T. (2020, September 2). Test Preparation and the Role of Language Assessment Knowledge in a Globally Mobile Era [Invited talk]. EALTA Webinar.

Clark, T. (2020, March 5–6). Online Diagnostic Testing for Young Learners - an International Trial [Keynote presentation]. Lexical Studies Conference, University of Swansea.

Clark, T., & Khabbazbashi, N. (2019). Reflections and Projections: Language Testing Forum, closing remarks [Invited talk]. University of Swansea.

Clark, T. (2019, July 6–7). Looking Beyond the Test: The Complex Relationship between IELTS Preparation in China and Subsequent UK Study [Keynote presentation]. CALTA Conference, China.

Dr Tony Clark Google Scholar profile