Can we predict task difficulty in an oral proficiency test? Exploring the potential of an information processing approach to task design

This study addresses the following question: Are different task characteristics and performance conditions (involving assumed different levels of cognitive demand) associated with different levels of fluency, complexity, or accuracy in test candidate responses? The materials for the were a series of narrative tasks involving a picture stimulus; the participants were 193 pre-university students taking English courses. We varied the conditions for tasks in each dimension and measured the impact of these factors on task performance with both familiar detailed discourse measures and specially constructed rating scales, analyzed using Rasch methods. We found that task performance conditions in each dimension failed to influence task difficulty and task performance as expected. We discuss implications for the design of speaking assessments and broader research