Difficulty-Generating Features of Text-based Physics Tasks

Abstract

Influencing the difficulty of performance tasks is of great interest in science education as in several other subjects. In the context of the VAMPS project, difficulty-generating features with respect to the cognitive demand of text-based physics tasks were systematically varied at three levels. Based on preliminary work and two pilot studies presented here briefly, a model was developed by which cognitive requirement was varied according to three features. The viability of this model was empirically tested with a sample of n = 414 secondary school students. The feature cognitive activity proved to be a significant factor influencing the empirically measured difficulty of tasks. With the help of the feature number of information obtained from task stem and number of subject-specific mental procedures, no systematic influence on task difficulty could be shown. The influence of the test persons’ individual prior knowledge on the actual task difficulty is generally assumed to be a confounding factor. Overall, the present study contributes to a better understanding of construct representation in assessments of subject-specific proficiency and empirically confirms that a systematic variation of the task feature cognitive activity on three levels affects task difficulty