Journal of East China Normal University(Educationa ›› 2010, Vol. 28 ›› Issue (1): 48-52.

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CTA of problem difficulty of the math entrance tests for high school and college

SHAO Zhifang&LI Erxia   

  1. The School of Psychology and Cognitive Science, East China Normal University, Shanghai, 200062
  • Received:1900-01-01 Revised:1900-01-01 Online:2010-03-30 Published:2010-03-30
  • Contact: SHAO Zhifang&LI Erxia

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Abstract: According to the Cognitive Task Analysis (CTA) frame and procedure developed by Shao and Yu (2008) and the multi-indicator system by Li and Shao (2009), we measured the difficulty of the math problems in entrance tests of the year 2007~2009 both for the high school and college entrance in Shanghai. The results show that: (1) the inter-rater reliability of the CTA method is significant; (2) for the college entrance tests, 2007 and 2009 were relatively harder, while 2008 was easier; (3) the difficulty of the high school entrance math tests declined year by year during 2007~2009.

Key words: cognitive task analysis (CTA), math problem, solution difficulty, base difficulty, difficulty index