This study uses what Cresswell (2003) refers to as a ‘mixed methods approach’, one that combines quantitative and qualitative data collection and a ‘sequential explanatory strategy’ in which the collection and analysis of the quantitative data is followed by the collection and analysis of the qualitative data (p 215). This two-phase sequential mixed methods approach was used so that the quantitative data collected in the form of IELTS Test results achieved by a sample of undergraduate students at the beginning and towards the end of their period of study in Australia could be analysed, and then, after these quantitative results.
