• The Journal of the Korea Contents Association
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• v.20 no.1
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• pp.334-344
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• 2020

This study explored students' subject interests and task difficulty recognition levels changed when they provided tasks with Keller's ARCS motivation design in PBL(Problem Based Learning) class. This study participant were 79 college students majoring in teaching profession. Experimental and comparative groups were formed for the study. Primary PBLs were conducted to measure prior levels of subject interest and task difficulty recognition. Secondary PBLs were performed to verify the effectiveness of the ARCS motivation design task. The experimental group performed the tasks that reflected the ARCS motivation design. Collected data were analyzed using ANCOVA. As a result, the experimental group had a higher level of subject interest and a lower level of task difficulty recognition.

• Journal of Korea Game Society
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• v.17 no.3
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• pp.21-32
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• 2017

Computer games must keep the user immersed for fun. According to the immersion theory, maintaining the user's immersive state requires a continuous balance of game skill level and game difficulty level This study proposes a game skill estimation method of 9th grade that can be applied to a casual action game that can assume a zero-sum game, and additionally proposed a difficulty guessing method. The proposed methods can be implemented quickly and easily because it is a method determining by conditional mathematical expressions. Experiments on the accuracy of the proposed methods for the customized Pac-Man game show that the accuracy of the skill level was 1.2 grade as the difference on the average and the accuracy of the game difficulty level was 1.81 grade the difference on the average. The results show that the proposed methods are accurate enough to be applied to casual action games satisfying the zero-sum condition.

• Journal of the Korean School Mathematics Society
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• v.10 no.1
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• pp.113-127
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• 2007

This study explored the possibility of building a statistical model predicting difficulty of mathematics test items through the analysis of nation-wide scholastic ability test results for the past 5 years. Multiple linear regression analysis was conducted in predicting difficulty of mathematics test items. We adopted three major areas for independent variables: the content area, the behavior area, and the test item format area, each of which was categorized into more detailed sub-areas. For the dependent variable, the proportion of correct answer was used to represent the item difficulty. Statistically significant independent variables were included in the regression model based on the stepwise selection method. Several important factors affecting difficulty of mathematics test items for each area were identified. R-squares for the final regression model were fairly high, implying that the regression equation can be used to predict difficulty of test items at an acceptable level. Lastly, the regression model was cross-validated using independently collected data. We believe that this study will provide basic but very critical information for predicting the proportion of correct answer by showing the factors that should be considered for developing mathematics test items for the college entrance examination or high school classroom test.

• Journal of Korean Elementary Science Education
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• v.42 no.4
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• pp.513-522
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• 2023

There is a lack of empirical research on the level of students' state anxiety according to their perceived task difficulty when confronting science questions. This study seeks to investigate whether perceived task difficulty moderates the process of arousing students' state anxiety in science learning. In pursuit of this objective, we engaged 410 fifth- and sixth-grade elementary school students (186 fifth graders; 194 females) in solving two science questions. We then verified the moderating effect of perceived task difficulty on the relationship between science anxiety and state anxiety arousal when confronting science questions using the PROCESS Macro Model 1. Results confirmed that science anxiety and perceived task difficulty significantly and positively predicted state anxiety. Notably, perceived task difficulty had a significant moderating effect on the process of arousing state anxiety, where lower perceived task difficulty led to a greater increase in state anxiety after confronting the science questions. We discuss the implications of the findings for science education and propose potential directions for future research.

• Journal of Technologic Dentistry
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• v.44 no.3
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• pp.104-110
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• 2022

Purpose: This study analyzes the difficulty and discrimination of the paper-based test (PBT) and the computer-based test (CBT) according to item response theory, focusing on the National Dental Technician Examination. Methods: A mock test was conducted from September 15 to 23, 2020, and the final 179 (1 out of 180 absentees)people were the subjects of this study. Both frequency analysis and factor analysis were performed. The collected data were analyzed using IBM SPSS Statistics ver. 18.0 (IBM) and jMetrik programs. The significance level was set to 0.05. Results: The difficulty of the mock test was more easily responded to in CBT. It was also predicted that the CBT could better measure the ability of test takers than the PBT could. Conclusion: The difficulty, discrimination, and reliability of the questions were not affected by the examination method through the mock test. The feasibility of a future change to the CBT was confirmed by the National Dental Technician Examination.

• Korean Journal of Clinical Pharmacy
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• v.25 no.1
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• pp.27-33
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• 2015

Background: Since November 2012, some of over-the-counter (OTC) medications have been sold in convenience store without pharmacist' s supervision. We purposed to examine if the product labels of OTCs provide sufficient information that is appropriate for consumers who may have low health literacy. Methods: We compared the difficulty of words that are utilized in pharmaceutical product labels of interest (intervention) with those in the $6^{th}$ grade textbook (control). Pharmaceutical products of interest were comprised of 13 OTCs which have been sold currently in convenience stores. We grouped words into the 4 levels of difficulty based on the Korean Vocabulary Classification for Education, and statistically tested words frequency in each level between OTCs and control. Results: The 13 OTC labels included lay language (easier or equal to language used in primary school) about 10% less; professional language about 10% more (p < 0.001 in all). Labels for analgesics had the longest and most difficult information, followed by common cold preparations, muscle pain relievers as plaster or cataplasma and digestives. Conclusion: The 13 OTC labels might fail to provide appropriate information for safety use by consumers in terms of the difficulty level of words. The improvement of labels of OTC medications and consumer education strategies are called for safety use of OTC medications sold in convenience stores.

• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.5 no.1
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• pp.1-9
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• 1985

It is apparent to anyone who has taught science in secondary. schools that a substantial percentage of students find the subject difficult: What is the cause of difficulty? There is season to believe that part of this difficulty is associated with students' intellectual development as deserifed by Piaget. To investigate the difficulty students face with learning science in the light of Piagetian developmental theory, the stages of the intellectual development of the secondary school student s were assessed in this study using the instrument called Group Assessment of Logical Think ing (GALT). The results of this study showed that more than 60% of 7th and 8th grade students were Classified as concrete operational level. It was also found that only 20% of the students from 9th through 11th grade were formal operational stage, while about 40% of them were still at concrete operational stage. This study showed that. there was a significant main effect on the intellectual development of the students by grade. However, it showed that at 0.5 level of significance there was no main effect by sex although mean scores of male on the assessment were higher than those of female.

• Journal of The Korean Society of Integrative Medicine
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• v.11 no.4
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• pp.199-211
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• 2023

Purpose : Rapid population aging in South Korea is emerging as serious social problems, and interest in the health-related quality of life of the elderly is also increasing. Therefore, this study attempted to provide basic data to develop measures to improve the health-related quality of life of the elderly by identifying the impact of the elderly's dietary lifestyle on the health-related quality of life. Methods : Utilizing raw data from the Korea national health and nutrition examination survey spanning from 2011 to 2020, this study focused on individuals aged 65 and above. After excluding cases with missing data, 12,731 individuals were included in the final analysis. Various statistical methods including frequency analysis, t-tests, ANOVA, Scheffé test and hierarchical regression analysis were performed using SPSS 25.0 for windows. The statistical significance level (α) was set at .05. Results : The main results of this study were as follows. Firstly, dietary lifestyle exhibited variations depending on gender, age, education level, individual income, basic livelihood type, household type, self-rated health status, and chewing difficulty (p<.001). Secondly, there were disparities in health-related quality of life (as measured by the EQ-5D index) based on gender, age, education level, residence, individual income, basic livelihood security, self-rated health status, and chewing difficulty (p<.001). Thirdly, the EQ-5D index showed that elderly individuals' dietary lifestyle adversely impacted their health-related quality of life (F=353.74, p<.001). Conclusion : Therefore, it is necessary to prepare policies to improve the health-related quality of life by maintaining a proper diet for the elderly, and customized support and management is required taking into account the elderly's gender, age, education level, individual income, basic livelihood security, household type, self-rated health status, chewing difficulty etc.

• Journal of the Korea Society of Computer and Information
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• v.16 no.7
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• pp.127-135
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• 2011

It is required that an e-learning system has a content recommendation component which helps a learner choose an item. In order to predict items concerning learner's interest, collaborative filtering and content-based filtering methods have been most widely used. The methods recommend items for a learner based on other learner's interests without considering the knowledge level of the learner. So, the effectiveness of the recommendation can be reduced when the number of overall users are relatively small. Also, it is not easy to recommend a newly added item. In order to address the problem, we propose a content recommendation method based on the similarity and the difficulty of an item. By using a recommendation function that reflects both characteristics of items, a higher-level leaner can choose more difficult but less similar items, while a lower-level learner can select less difficult but more similar items, Thus, a learner can be presented items according to his or her level of achievement, which is irrelevant to other learner's interest.

• The Journal of The Korea Institute of Intelligent Transport Systems
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• v.20 no.6
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• pp.214-227
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• 2021

The purpose of this study is to find the driving difficulty of automated vehicles in terms of road infrastructure operation. It was judged out of this study that the level of automated driving would be enhanced if the road situation recognition ability was advanced through the presentation of infrastructure information during the difficult driving situations. The difficulty evaluation index was divided into three stages, and a survey of experts and an AHP were conducted. The result of the AHP showed that the driving difficulty of the interrupted flow was much higher than that of the uninterrupted flow. The AHP results also showed that and the driving difficulty of unsignalized intersections and roundabouts under an interrupted flow was evaluated as the highest. The top six driving situations with high difficulty were also evaluated to occur under unsignalized intersections and roundabouts.