I had three purposes in mind for using the letter as an instrument. One purpose was to collect grounded data, unlike the questionnaire data and partly unlike the interview data which were based on pre-determined categories. The second purpose was to try the letter as a new instrument which had never been used in washback studies, and the third purpose was to triangulate it with the questionnaire and interviews. I asked the students to write a letter in which to give advice to a friend on appropriate ways of preparing for the SPE/GE Test and give reasons for their advice. Therefore, the contents of the letters were determined by the students’ agenda i.e. what they thought were important for test preparation.
