Effects of Item Characteristics on Multiple-Choice Item Difficulty

Abstract

MULTIPLE-choice test item responses may be influenced by a number of factors other than knowledge of content. Two factors, language difficulty and option set convergence, were experimentally manipulated and their effects on item difficulty assessed. Option convergence was found to have a significant effect on item difficulty while the effect of language difficulty was not significant. Distracter selection patterns differed across levels of language difficulty for only 6% of the items. It was suggested that a model of task difficulty be developed through investigation of additional characteristics of multiple-choice items.