Abstract
The present study investigates the best factor for controlling the item difficulty of multiple-choice English vocabulary questions generated by an automatic question generation system. Three factors are considered for controlling item difficulty: (1) reading passage difficulty, (2) semantic similarity between the correct answer and distractors, and (3) the distractor word difficulty level. An experiment was conducted by administering machine-generated items to three groups of English learners. The groups were determined based on their standardised English test scores. In total, 120 items, generated using combinations of the above three factors, were tested. The results reveal that the distractor word difficulty level had the greatest impact on item difficulty, but this tendency changed depending on the proficiency of the test takers. These results will be of use when implementing a fully automatic system for administrating tests.
Highlights
Research on computer-assisted language testing mainly focuses on areas related to the delivery of the test, e.g. computerised adaptive testing (CAT), and other areas such as automatic test scoring, response analysis, and item generation
The ability to design item difficulty automatically would be an advantage for the task of automatic item generation, so that the generated items are of suitable difficulty for a particular group of test takers
We propose a method that controls the item difficulty using three predetermined factors related to the question components: (1) reading passage difficulty (RPD), (2) semantic similarity between the correct answer and distractors (SIM), and (3) distractor word difficulty level (DWD)
Summary
Research on computer-assisted language testing mainly focuses on areas related to the delivery of the test, e.g. computerised adaptive testing (CAT), and other areas such as automatic test scoring, response analysis, and item generation. A test composed of only too easy or too difficult items for particular groups would not be very informative about the ability of the test takers in those groups; in other words, the test would fail to discriminate the test taker’s ability on the subject. This is especially important in tests for admission and class placement. In CAT, item difficulty plays an important role It is one of the parameters that decides which item(s) to present and is used for estimating a test taker’s proficiency, which are the characteristics of an adaptive test.
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