The Triangulation Study of the Congruence between Post-graduate Student's Academic Language Skills and the Language Skills Measured by the General English Section of the National Iranian PhD Entrance Exam

The purpose of this study was to find the congruence between the academic language skills imperative for the post-graduate students in their academic disciplines and the language skills measured by the General English section of the National Iranian PhD Entrance Exam. The data were collected from field-specialist informants, language-specialist informants and post-graduate students. Both informants stated that all four language skills are crucial for academic success; however, reading and writing are more prominent. Moreover, both groups of informants asserted that there is no congruity between the language skills measured by the exam and those of the academic context. The post-graduate students mentioned the need for reading skill to read books and articles, the writing skill to write articles and e-mails, listening skill to understand lectures and the speaking skill to present in international conferences. From the viewpoint of post-graduate students, the reading section of the exam did not match the academic need of half of the participants. The writing section, which was not included in the exam, should be included.