Effects of Question Types on Item Difficulty in Two Reading Test Formats : Open-Ended and Multiple-Choice

DOI

Bibliographic Information

Other Title
  • 自由記述式と多肢選択式読解テストにおける質問タイプと項目困難度の関係

Abstract

There has been much research conducted to compare open-ended and multiple-choice tests from the viewpoints of construct and difficulty. However, almost no studies have examined the effects of question types in relation to test formats. Through two experiments, this study investigated how question types influence the difficulty of these two test formats. The results of Experiment 1 showed that question types affected item difficulty in open-ended tests; more specifically, thematic questions were the most difficult, followed by inference questions, and paraphrase questions were the easiest. In contrast, the result of Experiment 2, in which the same tests were conducted in the multiple-choice test format, revealed that item difficulty did not differ significantly by question type. In addition, we found that predictability of the results of the multiple-choice test was low compared to the open-ended test. Comparison of these two experiments suggested the importance of choice in the multiple-choice test. Close examination of choices indicated that overlap of words in correct choices and the text influenced the item difficulty.

Journal

Details 詳細情報について

  • CRID
    1390282680798811008
  • NII Article ID
    110008512357
  • DOI
    10.20581/arele.19.0_201
  • ISSN
    24320412
    13448560
  • Text Lang
    en
  • Data Source
    • JaLC
    • CiNii Articles
  • Abstract License Flag
    Disallowed

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