Investigating the order of grammar item difficulty: Using a Rasch analysis and interviews

Research Project

Project/Area Number	25370739
Research Category	Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (C)
Allocation Type	Multi-year Fund
Section	一般
Research Field	Foreign language education
Research Institution	Kyoto Sangyo University
Principal Investigator	NISHITANI Atsuko 京都産業大学, 共通教育推進機構, 教授 (50367942)
Project Period (FY)	2013-04-01 – 2017-03-31
Project Status	Completed (Fiscal Year 2016)
Budget Amount *help	¥4,550,000 (Direct Cost: ¥3,500,000、Indirect Cost: ¥1,050,000) Fiscal Year 2015: ¥1,170,000 (Direct Cost: ¥900,000、Indirect Cost: ¥270,000) Fiscal Year 2014: ¥1,300,000 (Direct Cost: ¥1,000,000、Indirect Cost: ¥300,000) Fiscal Year 2013: ¥2,080,000 (Direct Cost: ¥1,600,000、Indirect Cost: ¥480,000)
Keywords	英文法 / 難易度 / 多肢選択式 / ラッシュ分析 / 項目別難易度 / 授業効果 / 文法 / 多肢選択式問題 / 項目難易度
Outline of Final Research Achievements	This study investigated the difficulty order of different grammar structures obtained from an analysis of multiple-choice items. Three grammar tests were used and over 7000 Japanese university students participated in this study. However, only one data set, which was collected from 151 freshmen was analyzed so far. The participants took two sets of tests, each of which contained 38 structures. Although the two items testing the same grammar point displayed similar Rasch difficulty estimates in my previous study, the two items of 17 structures out of 38 displayed very different difficulty estimates in this study. A questionnaire was administered concerning such items, but it seems that it was because of an order effect rather than the difficulty of items per se.