Understanding the Difficulty Factors for Learning Materials: A Qualitative Study

摘要

Difficult materials overwhelm learners whereas easy materials deter advanced knowledge acquisition. Toward the goal of automatic assessment of learning materials, we conducted a laboratory experiment involving 50 college students recruited from two universities in Korea using 115 PowerPoint files. On the basis of the qualitative analysis results, we propose a model of learning difficulty, distinguishing measurable factors from non-measurable factors. The most influential factors for the easiest and the hardest learning materials are also identified and compared. The study findings have implications for educational service providers who need to automatically classify learning materials based on their innate difficulties.